


A Different Side of Me

by art2_dream2



Series: Tomorrow Might be Good For Something [4]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, Fantasy Racism, Gen, Harm to Animals, I cried while writing parts of this, I really do try to limit OMCs but I also really like looking up obscure Norse Gods, Jotunheim is not a nice place, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pseudoscience, There's a bit of a relationship that is Loki/OC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/art2_dream2/pseuds/art2_dream2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time has finally come for Loki to start his exile on Jotunheim. Loki's current plan is to get through it as quickly possible so he does not have to spend any more time than necessary the the barbarians he happens to share DNA with. The major problem is how exactly does one make restitution for nearly destroying a realm? </p><p>Meanwhile on Midgard, Thor has to face some harsh realities about what it truly means to be free to live your own life.</p><p>A story in three parts about the complicated relationship of brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water

**Author's Note:**

> So...it's been a while. Sorry! I would blame real life, but it's more a problem with getting distracted reading other people's fanfiction that is much better than mine. Thanks for all of the kudos and comments. I always get a surge of energy when I get one.
> 
> The first chapter is more of a prologue.

Thor did not regret his decision to leave his position as Crown Prince of Asgard. He was doing valuable work helping out this young realm. 

Thor was enjoying his time with his new shield brothers. They were swift and clever. Always so fast and changing. A mere month or two could change them all so fast. Thor was almost afraid to let them out of his sight for more than a few minutes lest they change so fast that he would never recognize them again.

He was enjoying his relationship with his beautiful and talented Lady Jane. She was as beautiful as a goddess and as smart as a witch. Everything that a woman should be. There was no woman in any realm that could compare to his love.

He miss wielding his hammer, though. Life without Mjolnir was more difficult than Thor had expected. With Mjolnir Thor had been an Avenger with no equal. Neither the shield of Captain America nor the armor of Stark held the might of the hammer Mjolnir that Thor had previously wielded so effortlessly. Without the might of the hammer Thor was merely a strong alien. 

The Avengers, like true shield-brothers had praised his decision to "be his own person" and "leave the nest." He was reasonably sure that this stemmed from the Midgardian tradition of leaving their parents house when they came of age even if they were not wed. It was a lonely tradition, one that Thor did not completely understand. Nor was Thor able to convey that the Aesir did not leave their parents house unless they married into another, gained lands and a household from military service or, of course, the house simply ran out of room. To leave before that was an insult to one's parents and an invitation for rumor. 

Thor was certain that Odin would have covered up Thor's disappearance by saying Thor was on another quest. It was not unusual for Thor and his closest companions to leave for an adventure that lasted decades.

No, Thor did not regret his choice. He knew things were strained with his father, but given time Thor was sure that Odin's temper would cool. Thor would live out Jane's life here on Midgard and then return to Asgard after her death. Rebellion had always been punished in the past by making Thor go on quests. Thor did not like to imagine what quest he would have to do to make it up to his father, but his father would eventually forgive. 

Thor would probably have to marry someone Odin chose and have to sire an heir. His wife would probably be Sif as Odin had been hinting at the match for nearly a century. Si would make a true and fine Asgardian wife eventually. A good Allmother as well. But that was in the future. Thor still had over a little over half a century of freedom before taking the heavy weight of the crown. 

A half a century of joy with a woman he loved before marrying and settling down. 

No. Thor did not regret his choice and tried not to think about it.

Searching for Loki's staff had been a trying time so far, made only more so without Mjolnir. 

Thor had even been briefly tempted by the offer of the use of a Beserker Staff. Thor turned it down because Thor was not a Beserker. He was a trained warrior and did not need to rely on the crutch of the Beserker staff to be a threat to his enemies. The son of Odin would not debase himself by using the weapons of the lower class.

But despite the struggles, the Avengers had finally reached the base of Hydra with the strongest fortifications--strong enough even to hide the staff that Loki used to try to conquer the world.

Thor tried very hard not to think about his brother. 

It was most difficult living in the tower in the middle of the city that bore the most wreckage from Loki's scheme. Insulting Loki was a common sport of the realm even if it was not sporting of them to do so without holding a formal flyting challenge. 

Thor was not about to tell them of their lack of social grace because Thor was not interested in trying to flyte in defense of his brother despite the fact that Thor was his obligation as the only family member present. He also was tired of trying to explain how Loki "got off light" and should have been "terminated with extreme prejudice" or should be serving "life without parole." 

Thor had decided that the anger of the mortal realm was justified and remained silent. 

Thor was not even sure where he stood with is relationship with his adopted younger brother. Perhaps this separation was good for them. Perhaps in a few centuries Loki would return to being the brother Thor had grown up with. Then the pair of them could repair their relationship and everything would be as it should.

Stark was on the primitive but useful communication device talking about how he had breached the walls of the stronghold. The Captain was informing them of a new enhanced human had entered the field of battle. 

It was strange how quickly these enhanced humans were being revealed. So much changed on this world and so swiftly! It was in many ways more exciting that being on Asgard and its never changing order.

The battle was over most swiftly as the Avengers were the mightiest warriors upon Midgard. Stark had secured the objective, the fortress breached and the enemy destroyed. 

It was then that Thor desired to lay claim to the staff of Loki, but Stark rightfully claimed that it needed to be scanned. A few days more upon Midgard would not be terribly damaging? 

Thor agreed to the delay. Thor and Stark headed outside of the fortress. 

The sky flashed in the unmistakable trail of the Bifrost. 

"You expecting anyone?" Stark asked.

"They probably come for the staff." Thor said walking in the direction of the landing area.

"But it has to be processed." Stark repeated the beginning of the argument he had just made. 

"I will speak to them." 

Stark communicated with the others their plans. Natasha and Hawkeye were busy with cleaning up some of the enemies, but Captain America was going to join them. 

As the forest thinned on the edge of a clearing it was a surprise to find someone dressed in Thor's own armor. It took a moment for Thor to realize it was Balder in armor he had no rights to wear. A bastard could not wear the traditional armor of the Crown Prince. It was absurd and an affront to Thor and all of the crown princes before him. 

And then Thor noticed his half brother's companions. Why would he be here dressed as a prince with an elf and a Berserker? Such strange companions. Was this the crazed ability of the witch that the Man of Iron described?

Balder's face lit up in the familiar grin. A strange apparition indeed! 

"Brother." Balder said trying to clasp Thor's arm. No this was not an illusion, but a reality. Thor pulled away from the clasp in a gesture that would have been significantly more rude in Asgard.

"Why do you wear my armor! What has passed in Asgard while I dwell here?" Thor demanded.

Balder dropped his arms and stepped back. "I understand not your confusion. Surely you did not believe Asgard would go without an heir long after the Crown Prince abdicated."

"Abdicated!" Thor cried. "Who has spoken these lies?"

"Odin came to us after you left." Balder said. "He said you had chosen not to inherit."

"He misunderstood!" Thor said. "I shall return and explain it."

"That is not wise." The berserker interrupted most rudely. "Odin's wrath is long, and the populace is not well pleased with thee."

"Who are you to address me?" Thor turned toward the Beserker.

"This is Agmundr Haakonsson." Balder said. "He is my sworn brother and part of my Hird, as is Bronweg of the Qipahq Forest Clan."

Thor found himself without adequate words. Balder, as a bastard, was not highly ranked enough to have a hird. And even if he was, hirds were not to be made from berserkers and elves. Thor's choice of a Vanir, Hogun the Grim, had been most controversial for many years. Hogun had eventually silenced the naysayers by being a warrior above reproach--

"Why do you come here?" Thor demanded.

"We are here for the staff." Balder said. He gestured and a large silver case decorated in gold appeared. 

"Hey. We need to process it."

"I fear it may be far more dangerous that you know." Balder said. 

"Believe us, we know." Hawkeye said entering the clearance.

"Nay. You do not." Balder said. "That contains an Infinity Stone."

Thor stared at box that contained Loki's staff. 

"How come by you this supposition?"

"We asked him." The elf said. "'Tis usually the easiest way to learn such things."

"And you trust him?" Hawkeye said.

"Only as far as it can be proven." The Berserker said. "But even the most minor possibility that it is one of the stones is enough for us to act."

"And there is very little that he can gain by lying or betraying us." Balder said. "But my time is short, and I desire to leave swiftly. Hand over the scepter."

"What is your rush? Can't it just wait a few days?" The man of iron demanded.

"Nay."

"Twenty-four hours." The man of Iron attempted to bargain.

"You try my patience." Balder said.

"Twelve. What is in such a rush that you have to get this back right away?"

"War with Muspelheim is believed to be eminent." The elf answered.

"Political maneuverings of the court." The berserker added.

"Loki is leaving today for Jotunheim." Balder concluded. 

"What?"

"Why didn't you warn us?" Hawkeye said.

"What need have you of this information?" Balder said.

"He could escape and lead an army of Jotnar here. They did that before you know." Stark said.

"We are aware." The Berserker said dryly. "We were there for it."

"I wasn't." The elf said with too much energy as was usual for the flighty race of elves.. "But the passages that the Jotnar used before to invade Midgard are closed, sealed, rendered impassable to even one of Loki's skill."

"So he can't escape."

"I would not go that far." The elf hedged. "But there is little that would bring him here. And with the scepter gone there would be even less."

"Take the scepter then. God knows I don't want it on my planet anymore." Hawkeye said.

"But we have to process it..." Stark said.

"Considering that you tried to make a weapon from the stone that rules space, I fear what you will try to do with the stone that controls the realm of the mind." The elf spoke.

"We still have to process it." Hawkeye said. "But I don't think anyone is going to mind if you have a few people guard it."

"Bronweg. Agmundr. If you would not mind."

Agmundr scowled briefly at Thor. He whispered in Balder's ear. Balder shook his head. 

"I will be fine. I need a bit of time to spend with my brother."

Agmundr glowered at Thor again, but went to go stand with the staff. 

. . .

Bruce and Tony swiftly had the staff hooked up in their lab to as many tests as they could possibly run in the shortest amount of time. Tony was not so silently fuming about how much the Asguardians were ruining his science-ing time with Bruce. 

His only hope was to A) Hope Thor convinced his brother that they needed more time with the staff B) Distracted the two guards C) Slip as much by the guards as possible.

There was little that Tony could do to affect Plan A and most of the needed tests almost ran themselves so it was time to initiate Plan B. 

He stood up and wandered over to Bronweg, or what Tony assumed was an "elf." Very Tolkenesque really with the long hair and the silver bow. His facial features were a little different--less idealized human and more I wonder what the skull looks like to get those cheekbones? And what is up with those eyes? Why would anyone need golden eyes? 

Aside for the furries and other convention goers that needed them to complete their costume of course. Now that Tony thought about it they were a very cool color for eyes. Color changing contact lenses--that could make some bank. Tony told Jarvis to add it to the list of Interesting Ideas to Investigate list or the (3 Eyed Monster pile as it was a rather long list).

"So then, Brown wig, are you an Elf ?" 

"I hail from Alfheim."

"And you are different than the ones that attacked us a few years ago?"

"I am not Svartálfar! I am Ljosalfar." 

"Sorry. You lost me at the words I'm just not even going to try to pronounce. Do you have to take centuries trying to make you mouth move like that or is your mouth just somehow different?" Tony poked the elf in the cheek.

And then Tony was being held in the air by the throat.

"I do not know. Let me look." The Elf put Tony down on his the tips of his feet and forced his mouth open. "Hmm. I would say it looks about the same. How often do you cleanse your teeth? I fear for your species if that is the usual odor of your breath."

Bruce, the green avenging angel that should have at least tensed up a bit or turned a pale green at this point, was snickering near his computer station.

"Fine then." Tony brushed himself off and walked closer to the other guard. This one looked very Asgardian very Futuristic viking. This version of Viking included the standard hair and beard--this time in red. He also said the whole white skin and blue eyes going on. Armor was also standard. Enough visible weapons to stock an armoury, check. The one variation that stood out was fur. Lots and lots of fur. A ruff around his neck and some thinner variation everywhere else. PETA would not approve. 

"Fuzzy man. What the hell are you?" Tony did decide not to poke or touch the man as he seemed to track all of Tony's movements with a highly suspicious eye.

"If you are attached to your limbs I would not bother him." Bronwig said. 

"Has he been known to bite?"

"He is a Berserker, so yes, you can assume that he is known for biting. He is also known for tearing the limbs off of enemies only to beat other enemies to death with them."

Tony stepped out of the Berserkers personal space. Okay Plan C it is then. He can totally get a few more tests around Legolas and a slightly less terrifying Hulk. 

Tony has got Plan C covered.

. . .

Thor showed his brother to the living room of the apartment he shared with Jane. It was a simple place, but Thor knew how to treat guests even in as humble circumstances as a house in Midgard.

Thor pulled out a few of the strongest ales that Tony had found for Thor. They were still rather lacking in both flavor and affect, but it would do for an afternoon drink. He also brought out a stein for Balder because it had taken many tries for Thor to get used to drinking from a bottle.

Thor also toasted a few poptarts. He knew now that they were common treats, but he still liked them even after being introduced to the other multitude of sweets made from "processed sugar" and "carcinogen like chemicals."

Once the food and ale was presented it was time to talk.

"I did not abdicate." Thor began.

"You left Mjolnir behind."

"Only temporarily. To prove a point."

"What message were you trying to convey that left one of Asgard's most powerful weapons in the middle of the reception hall."

"I wanted to be free to live my own life."

Balder was silent for a moment. 

"Thor. I love you dearly. But no man is free to live their own life."

"What?"

"Every being in every society has restrictions on what and who they can be."

"You didn't...you got to choose to be a smith! I didn't get to choose. I need to be able to choose to be king."

"Thor. You have already chosen. You were stricken from the list of succession. You are not and will never again be crown prince."

"It was a misunderstanding."

"Even if you did not abdicate and this is a mistake, Odin has recognized me as his firstborn."

"But..." Thor said. "You're a bastard."

"Yes. I cannot escape that, but the council has agreed to overlook that for a few considerations on my part."

Thor fell silent. Thor understood what considerations meant. It was probably an arranged marriage and some key nobles promised specific positions. Politics.

"If you return and fight my coronation you will start a civil war." Balder said.

"But you could abdicate! You said you never wanted my throne!"

Balder was silent for a moment.

"You are very cruel sometimes." Balder said. "Dense and heartless as that hammer you love so much and yet left behind because you needed to be free."

"You lied to me! You said you did not want to be king."

"I did not want to be king because it meant taking it from you! I loved you more than power or title!

"But do you know what it means to me to finally...do you know what it means to Hoder and me to finally have a real legal father? To finally be an Odinson? After a lifetime of being sneaked in through the servant's halls for a few stolen moments a couple of times a month? To finally live in the palace in a wing of our own and not just stay the night in one of our younger brother's halls?

"Do you know what it sounds like when you say that you want freedom to choose to be king? To the man who only wanted the freedom to choose to call Odin father in public. To be free from strangers picking fights with me because I am the only son of Odin they can hurt without it being treason? To be told I cannot even inherit my mother's title because I am Odin's bastard? To have go to war before I was an adult because Odin needed to make a political statement and then to be forced out of the army because I was too good at it?

"No, Thor. I did not choose to be a Smith. I chose to be a smith because it was the only damn option left to me!"

"But I thought you liked smithing?" Thor said briefly taken back. Balder was not the type to lose his temper like that.

Balder clenched his fists. He unclenched them slowly and then clenched them even tighter. 

"You have always been a good friend, Thor. A great warrior. An ally of justice. But you are a terrible brother."

Balder stormed out of the door with a slam and a crack that meant that something was probably broken beyond repair.

. . .

Tony was about to start the first of his sneaky tests when Balder stormed in. Usually Tony tried to reserve that description for Thor since, well, Thunder God and all of that. What was Balder supposed to be the god of? Mistletoe? No. That did not seem right. Um...Balder the god of dying and starting the end of the world.

Damn it. Without remembering what Balder was suppose to be the god of how was he suppose to come up with a good nickname? 

"We are leaving." Balder said.

"Wait. No. We have tests to run."

"What you have gathered will have to be enough to sate your curiosity. I have no desire to linger on this realm any longer."

"So I'm guessing the talk with your brother did not go well." Tony said as he googled Balder. Balder was the god of light and purity according to wikipedia. Nope not helping with the whole nickname sitch. Tony had a bunch about Hoder all lined up. Mr Magoo. Geordi. Toph. 

But nothing for Balder.

"He is..." Balder began. He stopped himself. "Our relationship is not any of your concern."

"I mean it could be. Thor is our friend so we care about him so there is that. And we live on this planet so if you guys are going to be going to war we'd like some advance notice."

"We will warn you of danger as needed."

Bronwig grabbed the scepter. 

"The test...you are going to ruin it."

"Probably for the best." Bronwig said. "It's illegal to study, copy or use any of the infinity stones in he nine realms without written dispensation from Odin. Probably would have had to kill you if you went any further."

"I would listen to the long-eared one. He used to be a guard at the Trädrötterna. He knows many of the laws which govern the use and study of Seidr." 

"Wait. Seidr. We weren't doing magic. Seidr is magic right."

"Seidr is a mistranslation in the Allspeak matrix. It is better interpreted as knowledge.

"Let us depart."

And with that the three visitors left to the same way they in. And it occurred to Tony that the stupid rainbow bridge were going to leave scorch marks on his lovely landing pad. He chased after them only to find Balder and Thor exchanging a few final words.

"I am sorry. I did not think."

"No, Thor. The problem is that you did think. You thought of yourself. You did not and never have thought about how your actions affect others. And if it you do it is never about how your actions affect your family."

"I am sorry."

"I have had to cram a lifetime of learning how to be king into a few years. I have a realm on the edge of war and a little brother leaving this minute to probably die on a land of ice and snow because he only thought of himself too.

"I was not born to be king, Thor. I was a Smith. A Smith! I enjoyed working with my hands. I WAS HAPPY. All I needed in life was the right to go home!"

"I did not want to show you this, but it is probably for the best." Balder gathered himself to his tallest pose.. "There is something that every smith knows, Thor."

Balder reached up as the sky flashed. And then Mjolnir was in the sky. And Tony was happy because Thor would finally have it back and it would be hammertime again--but the hammer went to Balder instead.

And Balder held Mjolnir above his head just as calmly as Thor had ever held it. 

"Every smith knows how to wield a hammer."

And with that the sky flared again taking with them the three aliens, Tony's best chance of figuring out true artificial intelligence, and leaving behind a very large annoying singe mark on to of Tony's new landing pad. Damn Asgardians and their damn advanced bridge that left giant damn burnt patches on everything.


	2. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a note: I'm irrationally annoyed at all of the genderless pronouns. I understand the logic behind them, but whenever I see them I get taken out of the story I am currently reading. So--no gender neutral pronouns here, I'm sorry. Since the majority of the story is told from Loki's perspective I'm going to blame the fact that All-Speak is secretly terrible at translating anything that has any other number of genders than two.

It was a lovely day in Asgard. The sun was bright and a gentle wind regulated the temperature and provided the best in cape billowing. It was a great day. A beautiful day. And Loki probably should take some time to enjoy it (even if he currently was not wearing a cape for the wind to billow), but the angry crowds of the Aesir public that lined up to watch Loki's march toward exile on Jotunheim made appreciating the pleasant weather rather difficult. 

Loki knew he deserved the hatred of the crowd. It was his fault that Thor had abandoned them for the backwater realm of Midgard. If only Loki had not let those first few Jotnar into Asgard, then nothing like this would have happened. Thor would have been king and everything would have been sunshine, roses and puppies. 

(Or they would have been at war due to Thor's impulsiveness, but Asgard excelled at war so the public did not usually see this as a bad thing.) 

Loki wished he had studied the tenets of temporal manipulation at some point in his life. It was a touchy and highly regulated field of study, and Loki had not found it particularly interesting. He cursed his lack of foresight. Without the ability to go back and correct the past there would be no escape from his frozen prison sentence, and no one with a half working brain would give him permission to study it now. 

(Loki knew the people who controlled the regulations. Some of them barely had quarter of a working brain so there was still hope he'd convince at least one of them when he came back. He still had to survive an indefinite period of time on Jotnar and potentially equal that on Midgard. It depended how quickly the mortals died and forgot how much they hated Loki.) 

But first Loki had to survive Jotunheim.

Loki knew that he was supposed to be changing his opinions on the race of Jotnar. After interacting with Angroboda on a regular basis it was getting to be easier to accept that not all of them were monsters that deserved an immediate, painful death. But even after studying the language and culture of the Jotnar it remained a fact that they were still a bitter and violent race of barbarians. There was nothing that they had ever brought to the other realms other than war and death. 

It was even harder still that Loki was going to have to spend his exile as one of them. 

(Half of one of them at least. His mixed blood undoubtedly elevated his intellect and culture far above those of the other giants. It was comforting sometimes to know that he was at least a quarter Aesir. The eighth elven part was fine too since they were the most intellectual of the races.) 

Loki was grateful that he was allowed to remain in his Asgardian form in the walk to the Bifrost with his brother. 

Loki scratched his arm through his sleeve. 

Under this facade of civilization Loki was still a barbarian underneath. One half of him was and would always be a barbarian. No wonder he had cause so much damage. Ice ran through his blood that destroyed everything that it touched. 

Perhaps it was best that he was to join his blood race. On Jotunheim Loki could only hurt other worthless beings.

"Ignore them." Hoder said, moving his grasp on Loki's arm so that Loki broke the scratching. 

Loki clenched his fist and lowered it to his side. He was better than this. Jorun had said that he was doing much better mentally. Sound enough to be among the barbarians at least--

"It will be fine. If not, I shall go to Jotunheim and extract my vengeance from the appropriate hides." Hodur said. 

Loki was grateful that even with all of the recent changes, Hoder had stayed the same. Hoder still grasped Loki's arm trusting Loki not to lead him into anything dangerous. Hoder had not once flinched at Loki these past few years even though Hoder had the most intimate knowledge of how much the blue of Loki's other skin could hurt. Hoder had even started to encourage Loki to be in his Jotun form when Hoder was around. Hoder had said it was more refreshing than the cooling fans on a hot summer day.

"I shall miss you." Loki said. 

"It will not be long." Hoder said. "I am certain you shall be back before the century has ended."

"I fear that may be too long to be away. Changes to Asgard have been coming more swift as of late." Loki said.

Hoder tightened his grip on Loki's arm. Loki was sure that Hoder was thinking the same thoughts as he. Balder had informed them yesterday of Odin's plans to wed Balder to one of the Vanir royalty or upper nobility. The only delay in the betrothal was determining which of the candidates would make the most desirable consort.

Loki refused to analyze which of the Vanir would most likely to be his oldest brother's bride. (Or less likely groom. Hoder was not generally picky on his choice of bedmates, but only one male had taken the title of All-mother in the history of Asgard and there were no other titles that would be allowed the consort of the All-father.)

Balder was to be the next All-father. 

It was a circumstance that Loki hade never truly considered. For most of Loki's life he had assumed that Thor would take the throne. 

(Aside from his daydreams of his father realizing that Thor was an idiot and then rewarding Loki with the throne for being the better son. The darker dreams of murdering Thor and taking the throne were definitely a side affect of Loki's mental illness because Loki definitely did not spend yesterday contemplating how much easier politics would be if Thor just happened to die from either a mysterious fast acting incurable illness or someone else leaking Thor's location to one or more of the many rivals who wished him dead.) 

Balder and Hoder had always been the refuge from politics because they were brothers but not princes. 

Loki had tried to rejoice when his older brothers had finally been acknowledged as Odinsons, but he had also felt guilty supporting someone other than Thor for the throne.

Loki did not know if Thor even knew about the change in Balder's status.

Loki also did not know what Thor was up to on Midgard. All Loki's recent knowledge of the realms had come filtered through the words of his family when they visited, and they were not forthcoming on news of Thor. Questions about whether Thor had wed his mortal and his adventures on Midgard with his new brothers-in-arms were never answered to Loki's satisfaction. 

The only questions that Loki's visitors avoided speaking about more was anything about politics. It was only through deft conversational manipulation that Loki was even vaguely aware that the council were drawing to different sides on the inheritance debate, swiftly dividing themselves into three--the calmer and the more progressive elements supported Balder, the militaristic and traditionalists supported Thor, and the politically savvy and quiet ones were remaining neutral. 

Loki wondered if there were any of the council that were contemplating putting forth Wiljon, the eldest of Thor's cousins as an alternate for the throne or if any other bastards were out in the shadows. 

Did Thor know that he had left behind loose threads that could turn into the warp upon which the story of an Aesir civil war could be woven? 

"Worry not." Hoder said interrupting Loki's futile planning of what might have been. "We will endeavor to keep Asgard the same as you leave it today. I, myself, will refuse to do anything at all but sit in your room pinning for my youngest brother to come and save me from the boredom. Balder will have to search elsewhere for aid to catch up on all of the work that Thor had left undone."

Loki stiffened slightly. Hoder must know that it was not Thor who had left them undone, but rather Loki. Loki who had stopped aiding Thor in his work a few years before his coronation in one of his earliest attempts to show how little Thor was prepared for the role of king. But Loki had left that protest too late to be effective, and the adroit managers and officials of Thor's lands had covered for the lack of direction and orders from the disinterested Thor. 

"When I say, worry not, I truly mean it, brother." Hoder said. "You will more than enough worries adjusting to Jotunheim. Focus your energies upon your recovery and your restitution. The swifter you have satisfied their desires, the swifter you will be returned to the place that you belong."

And then they arrived at the Bifrost Observatory where Heimdall, the all-seeing, refused to look even upon the shadow of Loki. 

Loki was not offended. His relationship with the gatekeeper had been antagonistic at its best and murderous at its worse. It was a relationship that Loki had no intention of ever repairing. 

Hoder hugged Loki tightly as Heimdall thrust his sword in the mechanism that aimed the easily weaponized mode of transportation at the realm Loki had once had once tried to destroy with it. Loki had bid his mother and Odin farewell earlier this day, but they could not seem him off in public. Balder was busy with unspoken responsibilities, but Hoder had sworn to abuse him for missing this final farewell. 

"Be well, my brother." Hoder said letting the tight hug go. Loki nodded and turned to began his lonely walk across the Bifrost to Jotunheim. 

With a few steps Loki had left the relative safety and familiarity of Asgard. It was a beautiful walk on the Bifrost. Loki regretted that Thor had destroyed such beauty in their fight. Loki had never thought he would again walk upon it. 

It was much easier to concentrate on the elements and process of its construction and functioning then on where it was leading. Each step led further and further away from the place Loki wanted to be. Loki was certain that his walk to Jotunheim was taken without guards in hopes that he would dive off the side and into the Abyss.

But only fools and the forlorn venture unprotected into the Ginnungagap. 

Only the mad and suicidal venture into it a second time.

The walk was over much quicker than Loki had hoped it would, but that does not say much considering that Loki had secretly hoped that time would freeze or the universe would end before the walk did.

And with the last step, Loki was upon the frozen wasteland of Jotunheim. 

Loki allowed his body to drop the lie of his Asgardian skin and blood. 

As the transformation continued the world changed with it. The sensation of cold disappeared, not to be replaced by warmth but rather a lack of cold. The colors of the world changed around him as white and blues differentiated themselves into colors he had no words for and the reds extended out to see that Loki usually could not see at all.

The group of Jotnar that had been waiting changed as well, the designs on their skins lighting up with these wordless new colors. A race that was difficult to distinguish one from another with the eyes of the Aesir became simple when their indentifying stripes nearly glowed with a color that Aesir did not have a word for.

And there in the middle of the group was Býlister.

Chief Býlister, the former King of Jotunheim.

Býlister, Loki's only remaining blood relative.

Loki was not sure what he felt about Býlister. Loki had become rather attached to Angrboda as one of his healers. She mentioned Býlister frequently at her visits, but he had never actually met the being. 

How did one greet one's true brother after a lifetime of living with three different brothers? 

How did one greet the leader of a world one had almost destroyed? 

How did you do it at the same time?

Loki looked up at his only blood related brother with his true eyes in the snows of his birth for the first time in a millennium. 

"Welcome home, Lodur." Býlister said. 

"My lord. I am Loki Odinson." Loki said. 

Býlister said nothing for a few scant moments, but did press the issue. Instead he gestured off in a direction that was not markedly different than the rest of the ice covered wasteland that surrounded them.

"It will be bit of a walk to the city. Please tell me if it becomes difficult for you."

Loki swiftly found himself surrounded by towering Jotnar. Angroboda added her greetings. Her attempt at getting a conversation going swiftly died, and all that there was for Loki to listen to was the crunch of boots on ice and the howling of wind. 

Loki's punishment had finally truly begun.  
. . .

Býlister did not think of himself as an emotional Jotunn. He had spent his life learning how to make rational choices even when anger or pain speared his heart, but Býlister felt a little choked up when he saw his tiny little brother emerge from the garish bridge that usually brought pain, humiliation, and death. 

The same prismed light that had stolen Býlister's impossibly tiny little brother had finally given him back. 

Býlister heart had mended a bit when he had realized his brother was alive. It had broken afresh when he realized that Odin had raised the innocent babe Lodur Lauffeyson into an interplanetary villain of Loki Odinson. 

And the pompous Thunderer had taken Býlister's rightful place as Loki's older brother. 

It stung that even after all the pain that Odin had caused him Lodur still claimed his false identity of Loki as his own. 

So much the Deceiver had taken from Býlister. So much that could never be returned. It was an impossible dream to hope that after all of this was over Loki would choose the broken world of his birth over the gilt realm that had driven him mad.

Býlister knew it was impossible, but deep within Býlister had hoped the reunion to be a joyful reunion of sundered brothers. 

\--Instead he gotten a transfer of a prisoner. 

Býlister was grateful he was not an emotional Jotunn.

. . .

Even with eyes that had evolved on this realm of ice, there really was not much to see even if Loki had time in which to look. The problem with being half the height of his blood relations was that a casual walk for the average Frost Giant was almost a run for Loki. Angrboda had to keep reminding everyone to keep to a slow pace, which only made Loki more aware how much he did not belong here on Jotunheim.

The path was rather treacherous as well as there seemed to be no well worn paths that would mean civilization was anywhere nearby. Loki had to constantly find an alternate path around large rocks that the others could easily navigate. Eventually they started to descend a narrow and steep ledge down a cliff face.

"We will begin to train a kvikindi for you." Býlister said as he stopped Loki from sliding down after tripping over a particularly slick area. Angrboda agreed and explained simply that a kvikindi was a smaller breed of pack animal common to this region of Jotunheim. It was typically used as transport and protection for children. 

"I will only be with you a few years." Loki pointed out. He did not want to have a pet born for Jotunheim.

"He will be able to live with you in Asgard." Býlister said as the group came to a stop at . "They can survive years in the sweltering heat."

Loki looked around for what made them pause at this particular bit. All Loki could see was another bit of cliff face. There appeared to be nothing here, not even the ruins that Loki and Thor had discovered on their ill fated invasion.

Without much thought and only a bit of effort, one of the guards shoved aside a large chunk of ice. Underneath the rock was an opening lit from within. It was large enough only for one adult Jotnar at a time to enter at a time. During Angroboda's lessons she had mentioned that Jotnar who lived in one location usually lived underground. This must be one of the entrances.

It did not look different from any of the other chunks of ice and stone. No wonder Thor had difficulties finding their cities.

The last guard rolled the rock back into place from the inside. Loki calculated if he was strong enough to move the boulder and decided it was unlikely he would be able to escape via this tunnel entrance.

"You will not be trapped in here. There are smaller entrances the children use in case of emergencies." Angrboda said as the group walked down what was a narrow passage to the regular-sized Jotnar. 

Loki refused to comment. He had spent the last few years under house arrest. He had been locked up in a cell before that. He had no right to even begin to complain if the Jotnar tossed him in a darkened ice chamber for a few centuries. This was their punishment to met out. Loki just had to survive it.

They were now heading down a flight of steps that were too large for Loki to take naturally. It was awkward going down, but Loki was not fond of the idea that he might eventually have to climb these steps back up to the surface. Random twists and a few feet of flat areas between flights of stairs kept Loki from guessing how many more of them he had to go down. 

This was not a welcoming entrance. This was an entrance designed to slow down armies and confuse enemies into stumbling into ambushes. 

Eventually the hall abruptly ended in a cavern large enough for five full grown Jotnar to stand if they stood shoulder to shoulder. There were two Jotnar sitting in hollowed niches carved into the wall. One was scarred quite badly on the face, twisting the blue mug into something quite hideous. Loki wondered what caused the wound. He assumed it had to have been an Aesir. Would the guard be out for revenge?

Býlister passed the guards on watch without comment or acknowledgement. The scarred guard exchanged places with one of the regular guards. Angrboda nodded at him, but did deviate from her conversation with Loki about the natural caves and how they had been adapted for use by the Jotnar. Apparently leaving as much natural cavern as possible was an aesthetic choice.

The snaking passageway that they were in did look for the most part like a natural passageway caused by the flowing of water. The presence of sentient beings was indicated by the carving of rocks to make it larger and the smoothing of countless hands on places where the path became steep and difficult to maneuver without the aid of the wall for balance. Dim lights lit the way adequately, but not enough to get real bearings on where they were going.

Surely this could not be the main passageway. The old, ill, young and weak would not be able to travel this ever deeper sloping path. Loki asked about it.

"There are many entrances into these caves." Býlister explained. "But the easiest are blocked off for most of the year."

"But what of the weak?"

"They would not survive the perils of the surface." Angrboda said. "They do not leave alone."

Loki was glad that he had not been raised here in these tight confines. He loved traveling. There were nine realms and thousands of worlds without. Loki had spent so much of his time researching how to walk the limbs of the Yggdrasil to make his traveling that much easier. What would it have been like to have lived in a cave?

"It was not always like this." Býlister said into the silence. "We once had great cities, and the underground was reserved only for the farmers and the lower classes."

"Why did you retreat into the ground?" Loki asked, knowing the answer.

"The wars with Asgard has cost us much." Býlister said. "Almost every city above ground has been leveled. "Underground is much easier for us to maintain and defend."

Loki knew that the Jotnar could not have evolved as underground creatures. Their reliance on the artificial lights in these tunnels was an assurance of that as was their large bodies. But the rocky corridors were easily defendable. Loki spotted a number of holes he believed were murder holes and piles of rock that could be convinced to slide with only a subtle shift in weight. This was the very last stronghold of the Jotnar. Loki would not want to lead an army into battle in here. Even if such a battle could be won the cost to the intruder would be most dear. 

(Through ethically acceptable methods of war of course. If ethics were ignored Loki could think of at least a dozen ways in which to destroy an underground base with very minimal damage to the aggressor.)

The sloping path led past another set of guards, these ones were standing though, and into an even larger cavern. The path led to an entrance at the top of the cave. A spiraling path of ice circled the expanse twice while passing by most of the openings in the outer wall before reaching the bottom. Other ice paths bridged the gap from these openings, creating layers of interlocking transparent roads filled with Jotnar. 

And for a moment Loki was shocked by variation on the Jotnar. Loki had previously only seen one type of Jotnar--large muscular warriors with very little differentiation. Even Býlister and Angroboda fit the mold that Loki was familiar with. But within view were a number of different Jotnar Loki had barely ever began to fathom. Walking nearby was an ancient Jotnar bent with age walking with two children even smaller than Loki. A bit further along the path a visibly pregnant Jotnar talked with a Jotun that fit the standard mold. There were Jotnar that were short. There were no fat Jotnar in view, but there were thin ones and muscular ones. There were ones that even looked more female than male except without the breasts that one would expect of any of the mammalian upright standing races.

And then there was clothing. Jotnar wore clothes! Colorful clothes! It took a moment to process it into something that he could understand. It looked as though if the Jotnar sometimes chose to clothe themselves they wore a fringed dress with a fur shawl draped across their shoulders. As Loki and his escorts walked along the spiraling path Loki realized that that materials of the clothing were all leather and furs and were likely dyed the vibrant colors. There were also beads sewn onto the leather and braided into the fringe. 

The crowd looked down at Loki. Loki met their gaze and straightened into the straight, self-assured pose common to all royals. Loki was a son of Odin. He would not be cowed by a line of blue giants.

"My brother Lodur Laufeyson has come to dwell with us!" Býlister said loudly and clearly. Loki leaned away from the overloud declaration. "He has lead a misguided life above and seeks to return."

"He was not above." One of the members of the crowd scoffed. "He is not Jotun." 

"He was stolen as an infant. He had not the opportunity to be raised properly." Býlister said. "Would any of you far better raised by one such as Odin--far away from everything that makes us whole?"

The crowd murmured. Loki tried very hard not to laugh at the idea that the Jotnar thought that he was badly raised. Loki had been raised with the best tutors and was well known for his courtly manners. Loki was grateful for the fact that he had not been raised in this icy wasteland to be one of these lumbering idiots.

"This is the first time the Deceiver has returned something he has taken." A different member said. "As meager as his offering is."

"Will the casket be returned as well?" A different voice asked.

"I am in negotiations." Býlister said. 

There was a general murmur of displeasure.

"SILENCE." Býlister shouted. Loki knew he was going to go deaf in that ear. "We have LOST! Odin has won. We will fight no longer. This is the way of the Jotnar!"

The murmuring lessened.

"This is my kidnapped brother long thought dead. You will hear his Tilståelse. If anyone does not agree, then they will have to fight to gain precedence."

Loki looked around as the crowd was cowed. It was no secret that the Jotnar had a primitive societal structure that was based on fighting each other to establish a hierarchy. Býlister did not look like much of a fighter, but by the way the crowd shuffled around and did not offer a challenge Býlister had to be a more accomplished fighter than he looked.

Býlister gestured with his hand toward Loki. It looked like a signal to begin Loki's Tilståelse.

Loki had been prepped for many months for the Tilståelse. The Tilståelse (Confession) was the result of the fundamental division of Jotnar society between the Bœrfirar (townspeople) and the Reisende (Nomads). Within the city--laws were strict and anyone who wished to live within had to submit to them. The benefit being that cities had stable food supplies while outside of the cities (so basically the entire surface of Jotunheim) food was unreliable. Outside of the city there were no laws. Those were were the strongest preyed on everything and everyone in their way. It was complete and utter anarchy.

The oddest thing about the relationship was that the Jotnar could and would flow nearly seamlessly between the two extremes of control. In fact, every adult Jotnar who lived in the cities had gone through a period as a Nomad. Usually sometime in their adolescent years Jotnar would rebel from their parents (often several siblings at once) and they would escape to the surface--some only lasted a few days, others to live their entire life in the wilds--but usually it would be a few years living with no social control. Then one day they would get tired of the lawlessness and settle down in a city of their choice to raise a family and never to break another law again.

It was weird. It was strange. It should not actually work, but Angrboda, the kind understanding healer, had told tales of her three years in the wilds with fondness. 

And a part of that divisive switch in social mores was the Tilståelse. When a nomad decided to settle down in a city they would give a loud, public confession of everything they had ever done that they were ashamed of in out in the wilds. It ended with an oath to obey the laws of the city. The confession and oath were then weighed by at least 13 witnesses. If 10 of them agreed then the Nomad was allowed to settle in the city. If 10 of them did not agree then the Nomad would be barred from ever interacting with the city again. 

Not a single thing could be intentionally left out of the confession. If something was found later to have been excluded then the liar could be exiled or killed in any number of painful ways. 

Loki had no choice but to give the Tilståelse to this group of Jotnar. They numbered far more than 13. Loki needed to get at least 10 to agree to let him in. He at least had two votes in Býlister and Angroboda. 

Loki wondered what would happen if he failed. 

"My name is Loki." Loki began in a clear voice. There was a reason that he was known to have a silver tongue. "From my earliest memories I was told I was an Odinson. I was told I was the Prince of the Shining Realm, and I believed them. 

"I do not know when everything started to go wrong. When I started fearing that everyone was out to kill or betray. When I started trying to get revenge. I cannot tell you all of my sins here for there are far, far too many. I have lied, stolen, killed and injured in the name of Asgard and Odin. Most of that I am not ashamed of for it was for the good of the people of Asgard. 

"I will, however, speak of the regretful choices that led me here. 

"I was the one who let the Jotnar into the Vault. I tricked my brother into coming to Jotunheim and getting into a fight. I nearly killed Thor. I destroyed the town which had given him shelter. I let the Jotnar into Asgard so that I could kill my biological father. I tried to kill my brother again. I tried to destroy Jotunheim. I became allies with the worst criminal in the galaxy and tried to conquer Midgard. 

"I was told that I was to give no explanations and for that I am grateful. I have done nothing for the last few years but to try to explain what I cannot explain. I am here only by the words of Odin to try to pay wergild."

Loki stopped and looked at the crowd. Would this be enough or would he be forced to recount every sin?

If he was to give every sin then they were going to be here for hours...days possibly.

"I have accepted his Tilståelse." Býlister said.

"I as well." Angrboda said.

The crowd looked around at each other and at Loki. A few uncountable moments passed before a third voice rumbled. "For Býlister, I will accept."

There was a rumble as six more added their assent most of them with the added words of "For Býlister."

As soon as the tenth spoke Loki felt himself relax. He was much more tense than he thought. He should not have worried---this was all politics. It made sense to have Loki sweat at his acceptance to society. Loki would have done the same. Make sure that the newcomer knew that this acceptance was a favor that he owed to the governing body.

Býlister led Loki in a simple oath to follow the laws of the city. Loki remembered the time he had sworn similar oaths to Asgard. He had scarcely been more than a child and barely of age. 

Loki knew that he had broken some of those first oaths. He would probably end up breaking these as well. An Oath-breaker was an oath-breaker until the end of their life. 

The crowd began to dissipate back to doing their own business. Loki wondered what was to come next when he noticed that the third Jotnar that had raised his voice in agreement lingered purposely behind in the manner that suggested he had something to do with Býlister. Býlister nodded at the Jotun and he approached. A few other members of the crowd approached as well. The first was a little fatter than the average Jotnar, but in that expanded way that Loki associated with gruff retired warriors. The one Loki was not sure if he spoke was larger and more muscular than the average Jotnar which made him look as if he did nothing other than train. He also bore a few more dramatic scars in places that should have been fatal. 

"Lodur, this is Baugi, Councilor of Farming and Thrimm, Councilor of Military." Býlister introduced the fat one and the scarred Jotnar. 

"I almost accepted you for just for the grief and embarrassment you have caused the Asgardians." Baugi looked down at Loki. "Midgard is a more difficult place to conquer than one would think."

"It was not tactically sound to conquer it." Thrimm said. "As your father learned when you were born.

Loki remained silent. Lauffey would never be Loki's father.

"Lodur will need a kvikindi." Býlister said without an introduction.

"I had word out to the búfé. There are no pups of the right age. Should you wait a month there will be a few."

"A wild kvikindi will be a better fighter."

"Are you expecting to do much fighting then?" Baugi turned to Loki. "You would be safest around Býlister. Not all Bœrfirar are completely unwilling to submit to exile back into the wilds if it means getting revenge on the Deceiver and his kin." 

"I can fight." Loki was not about to let them forget that he was a trained warrior. (Just not naturally talented as Thor). He could fight. He had trained with the same teachers as Thor did. (Just not as much as Thor)

"But you will not." Thrimm loomed. "You are Bœrfirun only as long as obey the laws."

Loki got a distinct feeling that Thrimm would joyously throw Loki out into the wilds in the middle of a storm without supplies. Thrimm's open hostility reminded Loki of Heimdall. Loki was oddly comforted by that fact and it disturbed him that he could be homesick for Heimdall of all people.

"I would not like to explain to Odin how I managed to let my brother be killed." Býlister said. 

Baugi looked away from Loki and towards Býlister. 

"It may take a few days to arrange a hunt."

"Make the arrangements." Býlister said. "And I will be touring the farms with Loki tomorrow."

"I assumed nothing had changed as that has been the plan for months." Baugi said.

Býlister huffed a little at the cheek, but gave his two councilors brief farewells. 

Býlister and Angroboda led Loki down one of the winding downwards paths, which Loki found indistinguishable from the rest. The three of them exited the large cavern and into a smaller hall at the bottom. They followed a hall that was narrow for the large Jotnar to walk in, but Loki was quite comfortable in. A guard nodded at the three of them and did not hinder their passage.

A few yards behind the guard was a door made of ice. Loki stared in dismay at the size. It would be difficult for him to open it. Perhaps this was a jail?

But beyond the thick door was room that was unlikely to be a jail. The room itself was the odd natural and pseudo-natural cave carvings, but most of the walls were covered up with tapestries and scenes painted onto animal hide. The floor was tiled with natural shaped stone. The furniture consisted mostly of large leather chairs draped with furs. 

It was a little rugged, and a lot less refined than Asgard, but it was not an unpleasant interior for a dwelling. It was also a little downscale for a former king and current chieftain, but they were barbarians after all. Loki really had to give them credit for doing what they could with a barren wasteland for a planet.

Angrboda took over giving the tour of the dwelling while Býlister retired to what Loki considered a small study. It also had a heavy door with a lock. Loki assumed he would never be welcomed in what undoubtedly contained the secrets of Jotnar.

(Loki wondered how easy it would be to pick the lock. He might try it later closer to the end of his sentence when he was more likely not to get caught. Not that he needed to know the secrets of Jotnar, but more to prove to himself that he had not changed that much from who he was before.)

In addition to the front room and the study there was also a kitchen, a kitchen two rooms in which to relieve waste in a bucket (Loki would not dignify it with any term other than that), and three bedrooms. 

It was swiftly obvious which items in the house were intended for Loki's use. There was a chair that was half the size of its fellows in the gathering room. There was a ladder to a chair in the dinning area. 

(At least the barbarians understood the basics of hospitality. Midgardians did not.)

Loki's bedroom was smaller than the other bedrooms and the decorations on the wall were mostly limited to green, black and gold. Loki was slightly touched that Angrboda would go through the trouble of decorating his room in a personalized manner. Loki took a moment to investigate the bed which was little more than a deep shelf carved into a wall with a thin mattress placed atop of it. Furs and pillows were scattered on top presumably for comfort.

"Dinner will be in but a few hours." Angrboda said. "Do you wish to have some time alone to settle in?"

Loki looked around the room. There were a number of items on shelves that Loki might be able to amuse himself with for a little while, but he doubted it would take hours. It was not like he had any luggage.

"I would like to start working towards my recompense as soon as possible." 

"I am afraid that will not be possible tonight." Angrboda said. "Or for a little while. Býlister desires you to learn what it means to be Jotun."

"I know enough. Just give me the records, and I will start." Loki said.

"Not until Býlister is ready to let you begin." Angrboda said. "I will call you for dinner when it arrives.

. . .

The rest of the evening was quite boring. The shelves had contained nothing interesting other than a few extra loin-cloths, some oils and brushes, and a smattering of books and scrolls. The books and scrolls seemed to have no rhyme or reason to their inclusion in his room. They were also smaller than he would have expected, and handwritten on thick parchment. The books included a genealogy of Laufey, three books of philosophy, a book of songs, and what appeared to be several fictional books including some clearly written for children. 

There was also a tiny stuffed toy made of some kind of fur. Loki did not want to dwell too long on why it was included in his room. He was afraid he was going to get angry and tear it into bits if he thought about it too much. Instead Loki hid it and the books aimed at very young readers books behind the book of Laufey's genealogy since it was the last book Loki would ever willing read.

When dinner arrived Býlister emerged from his study only long enough to gulp down one of the fish and then disappeared back into his study.

"It takes a lot of work to run a city." Angrboda said in a tone that was almost apologetic. Loki did not understand why she bothered. Loki had been raised by the King of Asgard who had spent most of his childhood being too busy for everything other than training his heir.

(Putting off having to deal with the complications of dealing with his blood related brother was also welcome.)

After dinner (and Angrboda watching him take a full dose of his medication) Loki retired for the night. He was not yet tired and considered reading one of the books. Loki grabbed one of the fiction stories, but removing the book revealed a tip of the ear of the stuffed animal. Loki slammed the book back and retired to his bed carefully not thinking about the stuffed animal that looked about the size one would have given to a newborn.

. . .

Býlister was a coward. 

He really was. He had decided that today was the best time to get ahead on planning for the realms even though none of it was very urgent. He had convinced himself he was so busy that he had rushed eating to escape without even trying to have a conversation with Loki.

Lodur.

It was so hard to reconcile the two.

But Býlister had to find a way. It was his duty to find a way to deal with his brother both as the last member of Lodur's family and as a king of a dying and surrendered planet. 

"Loki has gone to bed." Angrboda said knocking on the door. "You can escape now without seeing him."

"I had work that had to be done." Býlister said as he opened the door.

"I am certain that you needed to get ahead on planning for..." Angrboda looked over his shoulder. "...waste managements proposals and...what is that about the library?"

"This is harder than I thought it would be." Býlister confessed.

"I told you it would be." Angrboda said. "He did kill your father."

"It's not that." Býlister said. "You know he did me a favor in that."

"I don't think you could have committed patricide." Angrboda said.

"We had it planned." Býlister said. "It would have worked."

"But it didn't have to." Angrboda said. "You can mourn your father, you know."

"He was a stranger to me." Býlister said. "After he sent me away we barely interacted."

"You still loved him though. Just as you still love Lodur."

"I do. But I'm afraid that is not Lodur. That is Loki. And I---I don't want him to be Loki. I want him to be Lodur. I want to have him forget everything he learned in Asgard. I want him to hate those who kidnapped him. I want...I want my baby brother back."

"You know you cannot get those years back."

"I know."

"And this will be very hard on you both."

"Yes."

"And there is a high change this will not work out at all."

"Are you trying to get me to stop trying?" Býlister walked away from his partner.

"No. I think you need to try. Even if you fail miserably and become enemies. Even if all you can do is become friends. I think you will never ever be able to forgive yourself if you don't spend every moment of Loki's sentence trying to get some sort of relationship between you two."

"Even if we despise each other."

"Even then." Angrboda's eyes lit with internal laughter. "At least then you will be able hate all of the Aesir properly. We might even get our traditional war back."

Býlister groaned. Some idiot had challenged him a week or two ago on how war with Asgard was "traditional" and that by finally having a treaty he was infringing on immoral behavior by not hating all of the Aesir to a painful, frozen death. Býlister had managed to win that fight without having to ask Hrimthurs to stand in for him. 

It was hard getting the Jotnar to change. Sometimes they seemed to forget that even the most stubborn ice field did slowly change and flow.

Angrboda's laughing eyes reminded him that there were much better uses of his time to be found in his partner's room and Býlister ceased thinking of difficult things for the rest of the night. 

. . .

 

Loki's first night was not the best night's sleep he had ever had. In fact it was quite miserable. He could not relax in his Jotun skin. The texture against the furs on his bed made him feel as if his entire skin were covered in calluses. He wanted nothing more than a gallon of moisturizer and a roughed rock. Add to that his never silencing brain he did not believe that he slept for more than a few minutes.

Loki awoke and dressed in his depressing loin cloth. It was not that Loki was afraid of showing skin--he had served in the army with Thor and his friends who never seemed to be afraid of wearing as little as socially acceptable--but he did not like that all of his rough, blue, deadly skin would be out there on display. There was nothing that hid his shame from the universe at large. 

Loki was also missing his morning bath. His frozen skin did not sweat and therefore bathing was a low priority in Jotnar culture. Jotnar only bathed a few times a month or when visibly dirty. It felt unhygienic, but this was a barbaric culture after all. 

Maybe Loki's contribution would be to popularize bathing to lessen illness?

"Do you wish to know how to use the oils?" Angrboda entered Loki's room without knocking.

Loki felt anger rise up at the lack of privacy, but he remembered that he was a prisoner after all. 

"What oils?" Loki asked. Angrboda looked around Loki's bedroom and made a displeased noise. "Býlister! Where are Loki's oils?"

"In his toilette box where they belong."

"They are not there."

"They are in the..."

"I found them!" Angrboda said. 

Loki stared at Angrboda. It was a disgrace that there were so few servants and that she would be the one to aid him in bathing, but then Jotunheim was a poor realm and Býlister was no longer a king but rather a chief of a single tribe. Loki resigned himself to having few amenities than he had in the most war camps. Not that Loki did not know how to go without servants. Thor never did seem to bring any on his adventures insisting on roughing it. 

"Here is your body oil." Angrboda said holding up the largest of the jugs which looked quite small in her hand. "It will help aid you in keeping your skin pliable and your natural defenses at their maximum. This oil is for your face and this is one is for areas that are cracking or rough. Should I show you?"

"I should be fine." Loki said. He reached for the body oil. It was what he was longing for after all. He'd just rub it in quickly...

"And the brushes!" Angrboda interrupted his movement with some of her own. She reached into the box and pulled out a few and started to explain them as well. The largest and stiffest of the brushes were for use with the body oil to quickly spread over large areas and brush off dead skin cells. Smaller and softer ones were for delicate places and for use with the other oils.

Loki ended up being forced to accept Angrboda's aid in cleaning off his back and face. He refused help for anything else and asked her to leave while he cleaned the rest of himself. Loki brushed his hair and used a little of the oil to style it as close has he could back to the way he had worn it before all of this had begun. It did not look quite right, as the oil was not intended for styling.

Loki abandoned it after a few minutes of fussing, quite certain that the hairless race would not know a good hairstyle from the bad. He walked out of his room to find his blood related brother sitting at a table. 

Býlister was looking over a stack of parchment like documents eating green squares that may resemble the hardtack that Loki and Thor ate on some of their longer adventures after all of the other food had run out and the hunting was scarce. It was, however, an unfortunate shade of blue green that did not belong on a item of food. 

"Lodur." Býlister said, putting down his work to concentrate on Loki. "Come, the parundella is particularly good today."

"I do not wish to be called Lodur." Loki said climbing into what he could only think of as a high chair. 

"And I do not wish to call you Loki."

It might be a bad idea to keep insisting that he was the creature who had killed so many giants than Býlister's little brother. But admitting that he was Lodur made Loki's skin crawl. It was like that stuffed animal behind the book that Loki was trying to forget about.

Loki took one of the overlarge biscuits in hand. It was not as hard as hardtack and it crumbled slightly on the edges. Loki broke off a piece and placed it in his mouth instead of answering. 

It tasted like fish. 

Loki nearly spat it out in surprise. He forced himself to chew a little bit, allowing the taste to move around. It really did taste like a fishy, shrimpy crumbly mass. It was not particularly delicious nor was it completely inedible. Loki swallowed and he took another bite. By the third bite Loki desired something to drink to wash the flavor out of his mouth. He missed the breakfast at Asgard. There had always been juices from plants found around the galaxy, sausage and eggs from prize animals, and pastries made by the most skilled bakers in Asgard. 

"Is there anything to drink?" Loki managed to ask after the fifth bite. 

Býlister laughed. "How cold do you think it is here? Liquid water is most hard to come by this far away from the farms. If you are lacking water then there is ice to chew upon."

Loki started. Of course there would be no juice or milk as they would freeze almost instantly unless directly and constantly warmed. Jotnar did not sweat so the replenishment of water would also be less important.

Loki finished his parundella silently. Loki refused an offer of a second one as Angroboda walked in and joined them at the table. 

"I will be unable to join you at the tour." She said as she began to eat her parundella. "I have more patients that I must see today than I supposed."

"I knew that it was likely that you would be too busy to join us. as you ever have more patients than there are hours in the day to see them. I am merely grateful that you were able to accompany me yesterday."

"Some days---when I can no longer avoid it---I do remind everyone that I am the partner of the Chief." Angrboda said in a light and happy tone. She rose with one more parundella in hand. "Now I must be off this morning. See you this eve."

"This evening then." Býlister responded and then turned to Loki. "We should leave in order to meet Baugi at the agreed upon time."

Loki did not remember any agreement about the tour. It annoyed him that he was not aware of communications that went on around him. Perhaps the note was written on some of those parchments that Býlister had been working on.

As Loki and Býlister left their caves they were met by an unfamiliar Jotnar. Býlister nodded at them as they entered the cave.

"Who are they?" Loki asked.

"The servants." Býlister said. "Do not worry about them. They will not enter when a member of the family is within without permission."

That explained the lack of visible servants. Loki should have known better. Servants were usually one of the best indications of wealth and power within the nine-realms. Lauffey had seemed arrogant enough to have had hundreds of servants obeying his every whim. And Býlister was Lauffey's son and would be used to the attention. Loki wondered if Býlister missed being the authority over the entire realm.

Býlister led Loki without much speaking other than to point out various places of interest such as the path towards the market and the ways to various people's homes. They eventually had to walk back through the common area where Loki had given his confession. The crowds were not particularly interested in Loki this time. Instead Býlister was the one who was approached. The business of the tribe was not limited to court it seemed. Býlister gave advice freely and even made simple judgments on the spot. A few he referred to other people for advice.

It was a far-cry from walking with Odin. There were few bows, most seemed fine with a duck of their head. There were no guards, simply Býlister and his tribe talking things out.

They eventually managed to get to an actual farm, which was surprisingly not on the surface. Instead it was an underground lake filled with geysers. The room was filled with steam making it nearly impossible to see anything much at all. 

"I thought you would never make it." Baugi suddenly appeared out of the steam.

"I had work to do." Býlister snorted.

"You really should be more like your father that way. He always made sure that we all knew he was in charge."

"And what did that get him but a lost casket and an ignoble death."

"I did not say he was a good man." Baugi snorted. "Died a few centuries too late by my count, begging your pardon. But he did manage to keep all sorts under his leash."

"Begin the tour and cease this idle chatter."

"Aye, sir. This is a farm where we raise the parun."

"What are parun?" Loki asked.

"You know not what parun are?" Baugi said. "What do they eat in Asgard?"

"Meat, grains, fruit, fish, ale. Anything and everything from any corner of the nine realms that we could desire."

"And yet you did not eat the most basic food of your people." Baugi said. "Such a shame. No wonder you got sick. Imagine only eating the food of the Aesir."

"It tasted better than whatever I've eaten so far."

"Ruined your pallet too." Baugi shook his head. "No matter. We will teach you how to eat the proper diet. To begin with parun are small animals that off the heat and chemicals the geysers bring up from under the ice." Baugi said. "Ice is only liquid around these geysers so all life is centered around them. You own the geyser you own all of the life within miles around it.

"There are many different types of geysers, but this one is particularly suited to raising parun which is quite valuable as they are very hardy creatures. Don't have to worry about the chemical balance as much with parun. They don't get most diseases and suddenly die out. No, parun is reliable. They can be drunk with the geyser water--very healthy. You should have some before you leave. But most eat their parun in della."

Ah, Loki thought, parun-della. He looked closer at the water and sure enough it was the same color of greenish blue as his breakfast. No wonder it had tasted of seafood.  
Baugi walked much more swiftly as benefited a man who was used to this room. Loki found the steam disconcerting as the shadows of the Jotnar played on his nightmares.

By translating the shadows Loki was able to put some definition into what the farmers were doing. Two "farmers" lowered a long piece of cloth into the water. They then scooped it up and held it evenly as the water drained from the bottom. The cloth was then placed on a slab which was then carried outside the steaming room by two other Jotnar.

Baugi followed behind the two bearing the cloth. 

He explained as the cloth and it's pallet were taken into a much less steaming room and placed on a table. One Jotnar was working on another cloth, scraping the green off the cloth and into large buckets. 

"About half of the parun harvested are made into della and are one of our cities' primary exports." Baugi said. "To make parundella one mixes it with some flavorings and then dries it in the bakeries. 

"They are not the bakeries of the Aesir." Býlister interjected. "They are rooms warmed by the same heat source and the geysers, but lack the geyser itself."

Loki nodded his understanding. "And the other half?"

"We use it to feed the fish." Baugi said. "This way."

Baugi led them to a large room that was warmer than the living quarters but cooler than the steaming room that was filled with a large pool of water. In this pool was a large number of fish. 

"Do you eat nothing but fish?" Loki asked dreading the answer.

"Nay." Baugi laughed. "The fish here also feeds the livestock that do not eat parun or other things of that nature. The livestock does not need the warmth that the fish need to live within liquid water and they are housed even further from the heat sources than the living quarters."

"There is also hunting." Býlister said.

Baugi laughed. "Indeed. Indeed. But I do not find myself with much time for the hunt. I leave it to the nomads and trade for it with what my farms grow."

"Are they your farms then?" Býlister laughed as well. 

"I put the most hours into their running." Baugi said. "If they are not mine then to whom do they belong?"

Býlister laughed. He looked over at Loki. 

"The farms belong to no one." Býlister said. "Not even I or even Laufey. The parun and the fish are divided among those who have been allowed to reside in the city according to their rank and need. Those which do the work also get a greater percentage. About a forth of the livestock farms are also shared in the same manner, but the others are maintained by individuals."

"Why is the livestock different?" Loki asked.

"One can survive on a few servings of parundella and fish. It is not the best diet, but it will keep one alive and relatively healthy. Livestock adds variety, but it is not necessary for life. If one desires the flesh of a land dwelling creature one can either pay with one's talents, ones rations, or go hunt in the wilderness."

Loki understood. In his former life as the second in line to the throne of Asgard he had studied a large number of different government ways of feeding their entire population.

"Speaking of the hunt, we have discovered a Kvikindi and her brood not far distant." Baugi said. "We should be able to hunt tomorrow."

"You are a marvel." Býlister said. "I would not be able to do this without you."

Baugi snorted. "I would say not. You are just glad my ugly visage is not the sort to inspire confidence."

"You are also far too in love with your farms to have to leave them to rule."

"Ah! So you do admit they are mine."

"Only so much as you love them more than any mate or child."

"Why do I need a mate or child when I have a nephew to give all of my love to."

"Will I finally be able to meet this elusive nephew of yours?" Býlister asked.

"He arrived last night." Baugi said. "You missed his Confession. It was most surprising."

Loki found Baugi looking at him oddly. He almost thought it was something like a smirk or a leer, but he was not adept at reading the faces of Jotnar yet.

"I think you will like my nephew." Baugi said. "He is most anxious to meet you."

Loki wondered at the comment. Had Loki killed someone dear to the nephew and now he was looking for revenge? Would Býlister defend him in that case? Loki decided to ask about duels. Would Loki be forced to fight some kind of duel at any point? It would make sense that this barbaric world would have something like that. Loki had already been informed that fighting was considered a great way to settle leadership and territorial disputes. 

Loki hated things like that. Just because one was strong did not make their leadership the best. The weak often had much better ideas on how things could be made better. But Loki was half the size of an average Jotnar. It was probably a good idea not to annoy them about their culture just in case they wanted to make an exception.

Baugi then took them on a tour of several other farms that were variations on the parun and fish farms. Their lunch had been another serving of parundella. Loki was quite bored by the end of the day. He had held very little interest in farming even when he was a prince of a thriving realm. Watching the farms of a barbarian world was far less interesting than that. 

At least there was hope of a hunt on the morrow. 

. . .

Loki felt like he was awakened too early. He was infamous for his limited need for sleep, but to arise a second night after a fitful slumber just seemed excessive. Loki almost asked to call the entire hunt off just to allow himself the luxury of another hour of sleep. 

He did not, but Loki skipped most of the oils that Angrboda had shown him the day before. He doubted any of the others would notice his abbreviated toilette.

Loki ate parundella again this morning, but the flavor was less offensive this time. Apparently it was an acquired taste, and at least it was not the Coerinthdella they had tried on their tour which had tasted more of crustacean carapaces than actual meat. Loki had managed to beg off not drinking the water filled with parun which turned out to be more muddy colored than blue green

Loki followed his genetically related kin through a different path to the surface. Angroboda once again had remained behind because she had patients to attend. When Loki emerged onto the surface he was surprised to find that he had to wait a moment while his red eyes adjusted. Apparently they were accustomed very low light if this overcast surface was bright. 

Blinking away the last of the dull pain of adjusting to the light, Loki took in the hunting party. There were three of them and a large kvikindi. Loki recognized one of the hunters as Baugi and another as Thrimm. It looked like this outing was of the most powerful beings in the tribe. Loki wondered who the third one was. He was larger than the average Jotnar making him quite the looming brute. His face was also heavily scarred---and then Loki placed him. He was one of the guards that had been at the entrance to the city when Loki arrived. 

Loki was interested that there was only one guard for the three most important people in the tribe. It was almost as though they were asking to be assassinated or attacked.

As Loki approached he suddenly saw the fourth member of their group. He had missed him because he was hiding behind the kvikindi. At first Loki thought they had brought a child, but the stranger was not proportioned like a child. 

The short Jotnar lit up when he saw Loki and started walking towards Loki. The short stranger was actually nearly a foot taller than Loki. His ears were more pointed and shaped more like those of the elves. His long black hair was braided in a simple braid that reached to his waist. He sported several large scars including one that looks as if a beast had attempted to eat his shoulder.

Before the short Jotnar with the elf ears could reach them, Býlister began the greetings. Loki was first introduced the large Jotun with the scarred face. He was introduced as Býlister's head guard and "Challenge-taker." Loki made a mental note to ask about that title later.

"And this is Baugi's nephew Valath, son of Baugi's sibling Thrivaldi. He is as you can see one of the few other Jotnar with foreign blood." 

Loki was not certain what to say. He was a little angry that no one had taken the time to tell him that there were others like himself. Others who were too small to fit into this world of giants. Others that gave evidence that perhaps Býlister was right that Loki had not been abandoned. That perhaps Loki could have been raised to an adult here.

And then Loki was pissed. 

Loki was not going to play nice with this mixed race Jotnar just because he was the same height. Loki was not going to play their little games and make friends. Loki was here to serve out his time and then to go home.

Or Midgard to serve out another part of his sentence.

Or whatever. 

"I am grateful to meet you." Valath said.

Loki refused to return the pleasantry and instead turned to Býlister. 

"You will ride with Valath." Býlister said. "It will make this hunt much more swift."

Loki allowed himself to follow Valath to the kvikindi. "This is Ulv. Ulv say hello to Lodur. You will be seeing him around a lot I am sure."

"My name is Loki." Loki snapped. "And why do you assume that we will see each other beyond this hunt?"

"It was suggested that I would help you raise and train the kvikindi pup as I have raised several including Ulv." Valath said. "I will also be able to give you rides on the surface." Valath continued patting his mount on his head. "It will take your new pup at least a decade before it can bear your weight and half a decade more before he will be a threat to the animals on the surface that would gladly eat you." 

"I was trained as an Aesir warrior; I am not some delicate maiden who cannot fight a few beasts."

"You underestimate what the wilds of Jotunheim can produce." Valath said. "There are many monsters here, especially in the Unclean Lands that even the Challenge Taker would be afraid to fight them alone. Do you think you can mount Ulv without assistance?"

Loki took in the large wolf like creature. It was larger than the horses he was used to mounting, but it would be embarrassing to be given a boost. With a snort Loki gathered the mount's fur and pulled himself up and over onto the wolf. He grinned down at Valath. 

Valath grinned and mounted in front of Loki. "Hang on tight, Loki. I would not want your princely hide damaged in your first days back on your home planet."

"I have ridden Sleipnir before." Loki returned.

"I am sure that riding a horse, even one such as the mount of the All-father, will be different than the back of a kvikindi."

"Do what you will, I will not fall."

Without warning the wolf darted out into the field of ice. Loki was forced to grab and hold onto the other Jotnar to steady himself.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that the gait between a horse on solid ground and a wolf on ice would be significant. In fact, there was not much of any pattern that Loki could discern. Loki's horsemanship skills helped in keeping Loki loose enough to stay on, but even then the kvikindi was wider than a horse and shaped differently. Loki had also not ridden bareback in nearly two centuries. Loki found himself pressed tightly up next to this stranger as the kvikindi broke a path through the flat snow.

Loki was certain that the wolf was intentionally being difficult as well because every time Loki had was close to feeling the movement the wolf would jump to the side or just a little higher than usual and Loki would be forced to hold onto the other Jotnar to keep from falling off.

"If you are done flirting Valath, the kvikindi is over in this direction!" Baugi shouted. 

Valath laughed and turned his wolf around so that they were headed back towards the group. And suddenly the wolves movement was much easier to predict and Loki was able to get a feel of its stride.

"You bastard!" Loki growled giving himself some space between himself and Valath. "You were trying to unseat me."

"Not at all." Valath laughed. "I wanted to have you clinging to me."

Loki thought about it for a moment. The being he held onto was not particularly unattractive. Maybe it would not be a horrible thing to share a bed. Loki did not consider himself particularly promiscuous, but his bed was rarely cold if he desired it to be warm. Loki had just not desired the warmth of a bedmate in a while...

How long had it actually been? Since before Thor's ruined coronation...and before he had tried to seek help from a mind healer... It had been so hard to allow someone into his bed when they could have been an assassin or just out for money or power. 

But this was not the time to be considering a new bedmate. Loki, if anything, was rather practical when it came to most of his bedmates. Loki did not want anything here in Jotunheim to tie him to this ice realm. A few centuries more of an even colder bed than his usual and he could move onto the next stage.

"I am not interested in you." Loki said in Valath's ear.

"Ah, well." Valath dismissed far to easily for Loki's liking, but Loki could deal with a bit of a flirt. He had briefly been involved with Fandral after all, and there was no being more flirtatious than that member of the warriors three. It had been that flirting that had doomed their romance to only two years. Fandral could not stop flirting with anything that caught his eye; and Loki could not trust him not to not act on his words. 

What would it have been like if Loki had not been suffering from paranoia? Could that romance would have worked--. Loki chased the useless and idle thoughts away with a grit of his teeth. Loki had to dwell on the future not the past to get through this punishment. 

Valath fell silent as Loki switched his attention to his surroundings. Jotunheim remained a barren wasteland of ice. All there was to see was rocks, ice, snow and clouds. But if one stopped worrying it could almost be beautiful in a way that deserts and barren asteroids could be beautiful.

Ulv leapt to the top of a rocky outcropping while they waited for the giants to catch up. Loki was able to take in a much larger view. And then his heart stopped. In the distance the desolate beauty stopped and plunged into a giant gaping hole. Loki knew in an instant that it was the scar left by the Bifrost. A scar marking the damage that he had done. 

The other side of the sheer hole was not visible.

A permanent huge gaping hole without limits---How was this world still functioning? Asteroid craters of this magnitude were known to cause mass extinctions on inhabited planets and knock smaller planets into a different orbit. What had the Bifrost done to this place?

"There is it!" Valath said in a voice that was far to excited for the destruction.

"I can see it fair enough." Loki snapped.

"The quarry can be trapped up against Odin's Break!" Valath said. "We are quite in luck this day."

"Odin's Break?" Loki said. "Why is it called that? I was the one who did it. I was the one who brought pain and destruction and..."

"Odin was the one who kidnapped you." Valath said. "Odin was the one who uses a creation so deadly as a regular way of transportation. The Jotunn have lived for many generations knowing that death could rain down from above at any moment."

"Why is it not Loki's Folly? The evidence of my life in ruins?"

"Because your life is not in ruins." Valath said. "You are finally home."

"This is not my home!"

"It could be."

"I do not want to live on this frozen ball of ice. I am here to pay my debts and then move on. Eventually I will go home to Asgard! Home to where I truly belong!"

"Back to your kidnapper? Back to the ones who starved you to the point of near death!"

"It was a misunderstanding! They thought I was abandoned. They raised me as well as they could. I was the one who was a coward. I was the one who betrayed them! That is not Odin's Break---that is Loki's Folly! Loki's stupid, stupid mistake! How did this not kill your planet?"

"Our ancient defenses served us far better than any had supposed." Valath said shifting in his seat.

"Ancient defenses?" Loki stared.

"You forget so easily that we were once the rivals of Asgard." Valath tensed. "Our world is littered with reminders wars we once raged as one of the powers of the nine realms. Gratefully, one of those which remained was a shield against an attack of the Bridge. It was not enough to save everyone nor to prevent the ground from widespread upheaval--- but it was enough for the majority of us to survive the worse of the onslaught."

Loki was not sure how one would build a defense against the Bifrost. It would have taken an immense amount of energy--

"You have another casket." Loki whispered and then realized that Heimdall was likely listening in.

"We used to have many." Valath said. "The Casket of Ancient Winters was the most powerful, but there were others. Odin will have no more fear of the Casket of Covering Ice as it is now destroyed and the ancient shield is no more."

Loki stared out at the sheer cliff that marked the edge of the destruction. He could not even begin to comprehend a Jotunheim with such power as to even begin to stand up to the might of Asgard. But then why else would Asgard have feared the Jotnar? If they truly were stupid barbarians so inferior to the Aesir why did they feature so heavily in the fearful stories of Loki's childhood?

"This was not even the worst that Asgard has visited upon us. Bor rendered two thirds of our planet uninhabitable and left behind the Unclean Lands which are inhabited only by monsters and disease."

Loki knew that Bor had not been the most honorable of warriors and kings. He was too ruthless to be considered a kind king, but Bor had been ever victorious. And victory was the only thing that mattered to history and so he was remembered as a great king. There had been a number of wars with Jotunheim during his reign. Bor was known to have destroyed the population of planets and salt the ground behind him. The only question was why Bor had left the job only halfway (two-thirds) done here on Jotunheim.

"And still you desire to flirt with me." Loki murmured.

"Power is most attractive." Valath turned with a smirk. "And I do not have very many other options. Laufey had only a few of us created."

"Wait? What?" Loki said. 

The other giants arrived; and Valath was distracted from the conversation. Instead of answering the vital question Valath pointed out the object of their quarry. Thor other giants came up with a plan so basic that Thor could have thought it up. the four large giants surrounded the kvikindi and then whoever was the closest would kill the mother. Loki and Valath were left to find the pups in whatever crevice they would hide themselves in. 

And with that said the Jotnar were off. Within moments the four large giants which should have stuck out from the dead landscape were impossible to see.

"Cease trying to look for them." Valath grunted. "We must also be silent to blend into our surroundings."

"I have hunted before." Loki whispered back.

"Perhaps then you should try to act equal to your experience?" 

Loki went silent. It was not worth the fight. 

Valath led his steed along a break in the ice with the two riders hunched as low to the wolf's back as possible. Carefully they crept closer to their quarry until Loki heard the bellow of the Jotnar and the responding barks and growls of the quarry. 

Ulv broke their cover in the ice and Loki was forced to once again cling onto the more experienced wolf rider before he was able to reclaim his proper balance. Ulv himself was growling and snarling, a mount much more deadly than any horse could ever be. Loki spotted the fight which was not impressive as the four large giants overwhelmed the single wolf. 

Loki spotted the two pups and tried to point them out to Valath, but Valath was already heading in that direction. A chase with two riders was a difficult thing as they could not easily position themselves to aid in the run, but Ulv was quite swift. And much swifter than a pair of pups. In no time at all the two pups were cornered in the corner of a shallow crevice with Ulv snarling and pacing with his riders upon his back.

"What do we do now?" Loki said.

"We wait." Ulv said. 

"For what?"

"The fur of the mother."

"What?" Loki said. 

Valath looked at Loki over his shoulder. "The pups are too wild to be approached as we are. We have to kill the mother and take her fur to get the scent."

"Will they not smell the blood and the death?"

"They are too young to understand it yet." Valath said. "Have you decided which pup to claim?"

"What. Why so swift?" Loki looked over at the two terrified pups. He could not tell the difference between them. 

"I would suggest the one on the left." Valath said. "It is best to get the trauma of death over as swift as possible for the remaining pup."

"What?" Loki said.

"I do not see what would surprise you. There are none others which desire the second pup."

"You said that you have raised several." Loki said. "Can you not raise another?"

Valath turned and looked at Loki. "Ulv is young and healthy. I do not need another."

"I will raise both of them." Loki decided suddenly. "I will name the one the left Sköll and the other Hati."

Valath laughed. "Earlier this day you were not eager for the hunt. And now you wish to raise two instead of one?"

"Yes." Loki said.

"You are a fool in surprising ways." Valath said. 

Loki stared down at Sköll and Hati. Now despite his reluctance he had these two creatures tying him down to this blighted realm. Loki could not imagine these winter beasts being welcome in any other realm but this one. And certainly not in the summer of the golden realm.

It seemed an age before Býlister came with the still bloodied fur of the pup's mother and draped it over Loki's shoulders. 

"Have you not chosen your pup?" Býlister asked.

"I have decided to raise them both." Loki said.

"You cannot." Býlister said.

"Why?"

"You either kill it now or kill it later." Býlister rumbled. "There is no food for that which is useless."

"It is not useless!" Loki protested. "I will not choose between Sköll and Hati!"

Býlister growled low and then with a swift movement that Loki was not expecting he reached into the outcropping and pulled out the pup Loki had recently named Hati. With a sickening snap, Hati was dead and Sköll was all that remained.

"No!" Loki shouted. 

"This is not Asgard." Býlister let the tiny body drop to the ground. "It will be better for you the swifter you learn that."

Býlister walked away. Loki balled his hands into fists. He wanted to hit the smug killer of babies on the face. Valath grabbed Loki before he could go after the giant.

"He is right." Valath said. "You do not understand. Two Jotnar starved to death scarcely just a few months ago."

"If he does not like people starving to death then he should be a better ruler."

Valath released Loki. "I should not have expected more from a son of Asgard."

"What? honor?"

"Arrogance." Valath dumped the bag of meat in Loki's hands and walked away.

Loki stared down at the food in his hands. He noticed a trickle of blue-black blood from the fur had nearly reached the bag of food. Loki shook it away. He may not have been able to save both pups, but he would not allow his poor Sköll to eat something tainted with the blood of his mother. 

Loki knelt on the ground holding out the meat towards the orphaned pup. It snarled trying to defend what used to be its brother. For a moment Loki hoped that it would not work. That the pup would somehow be smart enough to smell death, that the pup would bit Loki, that the pup would rather die than believe this stranger wearing its mother's skin.

But it was in vain. A few moments and the pup stopped growling. It tilted its head and scented the air. Loki halfheartedly offered the bit of meat. The pup stared at it for a moment before grabbing it and consuming it in a few swift bites. Loki offered it a second bit of fish and the pup yipped excitedly. 

Loki heard someone approach. He looked over his shoulder to see Valath approaching with his mount. 

"It's time to go." Valath said. Ulv snorted and growled at toward Loki and Sköll. Valath told Ulv sharply to be quiet. And Ulv obeyed.

"Kvikindi are very territorial." Valath said. "It will take some time for Ulv to realize your new pup is not a threat to him."

Loki fed Sköll another bit of meat. Loki could already see that Sköll seemed to prefer the fish.

"Time is short. We should return to the city. Pick him up and we will be on our way."

Loki obeyed. He gathered the hound-sized pup in his arms. Valath had Ulv kneel and Loki climbed onto the kvikindi with scarcely any trouble. 

The ride home was silent and Valath was tense and distant. Loki was lost in stroking his new pet lost in the contemplation that Jotunheim was a terrible place. At least Loki was one more day closer to leaving it behind. And he would be rescuing at least one of these animals when he left this barbaric place.

. . .

 

"You will start your research tomorrow." Býlister said as soon as they arrived back in Býlister's residence. 

"It is for the best." Loki said refusing to let go of the last member of the kvikindi family that Býlister had killed today.

"I do not understand you." Býlister said apropos of nothing. "You have killed thousands of sentient beings and yet you are upset over the death of a single animal."

"I said I was going to raise him! I thought I was to learn empathy!"

"With sentient beings, not animals!" Býlister slammed his hand on the wall. Loki could feel it vibrate. "Your insistence in keeping this animal could have cost a child enough food to make it through the winter."

"Ask Asgard for help!" Loki said.

"I did!" Býlister said. "At the beginning of the first winter I travelled to Asgard to bare my throat. I was not permitted even off the bridge. They said it was not part of the treaty. That having autonomy meant that Asgard would not interfere even with aid."

Loki's eyes widened slightly. What did Loki know about the charity work of Asgard? Far less than he should have. Loki had been tasked with organizing aid to other realms. He had delegated it out to some faceless bureaucrat centuries ago. When had Loki last checked up on the management of the charity of Asgard? Loki had ridden out with shipments after several large disasters on their closest allied worlds--but he had only paid attention to the interesting ones.

"But it is better this was." Býlister continued on. "We are the Jotnar. We do not need the pity of other realms."

"But you should have other allies."

Býlister laughed mockingly. "Trade. By the first ice I thought it was going to solve everything. I am such a fool."

"It is not going well then?" Loki said.

"We have little that any other realm wants. Do you know what our biggest export was at the height of our glory?"

Loki shook his head. Surely Jotunheim had to have mines somewhere.

"Manpower. Construction and mercenary mostly." Býlister said. "Not the most exportable of assets when the rest of the realms think we are worth less than dumb beasts." 

"I did not mean to imply..." 

"But you clearly have not even begun to comprehend the struggles of the Jotnar." Býlister abandoned headed into his study and loudly shut the door and locked it. 

Loki took his new pup to his cell room. 

Loki tried not to think about the void as much as possible. He tried not to think about the nothingness. He did not think about the endless sense of falling. He was so busy not thinking about those things that he had nearly forgotten the hunger and thirst. The desperation for sustenance that would have made Loki do anything to end it. The true gratitude for the Chitauri for providing even the most basic of these needs.

Loki refused to compare himself to this pup. To a senseless animal who gave up hating his kidnappers for some food and attention. Loki was not thinking about it as climbed into bed with the pup. Or when the pup curled up nearby to cuddle.

Loki also did not spend a restless night dreaming formless nightmares.

. . .

When Loki awoke both Býlister and Angrboda were gone. Loki was annoyed that there was no one there to tell him where he was to go to start his research. He hastily ate the same breakfast as the two days prior and fed Sköll. Loki was going to have to go ask random strangers what to do because his inconsiderate hosts forgot he did not know his way around this city. If Loki was not desperate to finish his recompense and get out of this place as soon as possible then he would have stayed here doing nothing.

Loki had just finished his parundella when Valath wandered in the front room without announcement. Apparently no one had taught anyone on Jotunheim any manners at all.

"Loki. Sköll." Valath said way to awake and happy for this hour of the morning.

"What do you want?"

"I'm here to check on Sköll." Valath offered a hand for the pup to sniff. "I am going to help you train him."

"You will have to forgive me, but I have a previous plan to begin my studies."

"Well, I'm also here to show you to the library." Valath said. "It takes a bit of practice to get around in a city designed for proper-sized Jotnar."

"You said there were others." Loki remembered the conversation from yesterday. He needed to know to what Valath had referred to.

"Others of what?" Valath said. He walked towards the entryway as if to depart. Loki followed him. It was easy to get ready in the morning when one did not wear more clothing than a loin cloth. They left Sköll behind with a servant. 

"You said that there were others like us yesterday."

"Ah. There are a few." Valath said. There used to be more but about most died. Jotunheim is not an easy place to live when one is sized the same as easy prey."

"Why?" Loki asked.

"Why what?"

"Why were we born?"

"Ah. But then that would be telling." Valath said. "Would you not prefer to learn it from your research?"

"Tell me. I am sick of these games."

"I believe the reasoning was two-fold. One was practical and the other one fanciful. Which do you prefer to learn about."

"Practical."

"We're in a famine and the only place with yearlong consistent food supply is underground. Smaller Jotnar would have to eat less and would be able to live in some of the smaller sized geysers."

"And the other?"

"A very long time ago the Jotnar had a smaller cousin race."

"How long ago?"

"Long before even the first Jotnar left Jotunheim. The only records we have of them are old paintings left on walls and some legends. It was in a period when Jotunheim was in a warming period."

"I would doubt any legend which has Jotunheim as a lush and verdant world."

"Of course not." Valath snorted. "Most living worlds cycle through climates and it is the same with Jotunheim. It was warmer, but the delicate skin of the warm blooded races would have found the climate still mostly intolerable. It was during this time that the Jotnar and the Eotenar shared this world. The Jotnar lived in the world above primarily hunting the larger animals. The Eotenar lived primarily underground and farmed as we do now."

Valath paused to wave at a passing Jotunn before continuing. "But the world changed like worlds do and it became even colder. Food became scarce above so the Jotnar took over the realm of the Eotenar."

"I still do not see how this could relate..." Loki said.

"Legend has it that the very last Eotenar cursed the Jotnar to---unfortunately this is where it gets most uncertain---to never find peace, never find success off-world or on, to die in the same way."

"So Laufey thought that if you brought back the Eotenar the curse would somehow stop?" Loki scoffed.

"I'm not sure what Lauffey thought, but there were many who apparently did."

"But my heritage scans said that only 1/8 of it was this unknown other."

"They were a cousin race and closely related. We share much of the same heritage."

"So I am not a child of Lauffey."

"He bore you. He is your parent." Valath said. "That is all that matters."

"Where did they get the Eotenar genes?"

"They found a few bodies within the ice. We are created from them."

"We are the sons of dead beings." Loki stopped walking in horror.

"We are the sons of many beings. The Kree who was paid to make us patched us together from so many different races that it is better not to dwell on it. The Jotnar find the Aesir obsession with parentage to be quite limiting."

"Limiting? Pray tell how do the superior Jotnar manage this?"

"The Jotun who bore you is your parent. That is all that is necessary to know. All lines of succession and inheritance follow this line."

Matrilineal succession, Loki thought idly. Or something along those lines. Can it be a matriarchy if all of the members are hermaphroditic?

"You were undoubtedly created to be the Chief of the Eotenar."

Loki found himself laughing slowly. Odin had be right after all. Loki had been born to be a King. A king of some misfit dwarf giants that should have been left long dead. 

The pair of mock Eotenar walked in silence for a few minutes. After another few turned in this maze of caverns that the Jotnar survive in they arrived at a set of think heavy doors. Loki was reminded of the doors of a safe. What did the Jotnar hide behind such study doors.

"Here is the library."

"The library." Loki repeated staring at the heavy door that resembled something more like a vault or prison door. He would never have guessed library. "Am I to start with the restricted section?"

"I do not know what you are to study. I assume the librarian does." Valath grabbed a long braided leather rope which rang a bell. Loki was surprised to find that it was made of what looked like bronze. It also seemed to be of Elven design.

Within a few moments a small peephole opened and Loki could see the red eye of a Jotnar.

"Good morning." Valath shouted up at the eye. "I brought Lodur."

"You are late."

"My apologies. The walk was longer than I expected."

The eye disappeared. There were a few clicking of locks and then the door slowly opened just enough to let Valath and Loki through. As soon as they were through the door began shutting again. The Jotunn pushing it was a relatively short Jotunn. Not as short as the "Eotanar" genetic misfits that Loki and Valath apparently were, but still a head shorter than most other Jotnar but that barely registered over the giant scar that left his right eye an empty socket and cut the tip of his nose off. He was wearing a long sleeved dress that covered most of his other skin, but Loki suspected that there were other scars below it.

"You are Loki Kinslayer, then?"

Kinslayer. Loki stared at the Jotun. This was the first real open hostility that he had recieved since he arrived. It was nice to be treated like an enemy threat and not a lost child.

"You must be Groa?" Valath interjected. "Býlister will not be happy if you hurt him."

"Do not worry. I will not risk being exiled for breaking the law." Groa grumbled. "Come then." Valath and Groa led Loki went to a small room which had a number of identical shapeless dresses to what was wearing and a range of sized gloves.

"Wash your feet." Groa demanded pointing at a shallow bowl with a clear liquid in it. It was probably water with some other additives in it to get rid of diseases. 

"What is all of this for?" Loki said after he followed Valath's example of srubbing his feet clean.

"What do you mean?" Valath asked. "Are not most libraries like this?"

"What? No. They are just open for people to visit. At most you just have to avoid marking them with permanent ink."

"How good for you and your bloody privileged life on Asgard." Groa growled. "It's your fault that we have to protect the books this way."

"What do you mean?" Loki asked. 

Groa grabbed a book off a shelf. 

"Learn your history yourself." Groa said carefully placing the book on a table. Loki was certain that had this not been a valuable book Groa would have tossed it at Loki with much force as he could.

Loki sat down and began to read what amounted to the third history of the Jotnar that Loki had been forced to read. It was the third most interesting telling of their history filled with long, archaic, and nearly untranslatable words written in a round about matter that seemed universal to all scholars everywhere. 

This large tome of awkward language could be summarized down to the basic story. The Jotnar were enslaved by the Svartálfar. (This book referred to them as servant. Apparently slavery was a foreign concept.) It evolved into an odd cycle where the Jotnar were taken about the age they would typically leave the city to become a nomad and return much later to have children and settle in one of the cities. The returning Jotnar pooled all of their acquired knowledge to increase the technology of Jotunheim which ultimately led to the creation of the Casket of Ancient Winters.

It was this Casket of Ancient Winters that led the Jotnar to victory against the Svartálfar. 

(Loki had calculated the dates. Their victory was about the same time that the war with Asgard began. It's likely that the Jotnar in part owed their freedom to Bor's imperialism. It was also this rebellion that probably earned the Jotnar their reputation as treacherous and cunning despite the fact that their usual tactics in almost every war after this one was typically limited to running at things in large groups and hitting them with large sticks. Similar tactics to Thor actually.)

Then there is a boring period where the Jotnar establish themselves in the nine realms as a new power. They fought a few minor wars, signed a few treaties, etc, etc. There was some internal stuff of a similar nature. More treaties and internal wars or whatever. 

And then Bor finished with the Svartálfar and turned his attention on Jotunheim. 

(According to Aesir history Bor had started the war in response to aggression from the Jotnar. The Jotnar history had him attacking without warning. Considering what Loki knew of both peoples it could really have gone either way.) 

The war with Bor dragged on and on. Bor destroyed their great cities. Bor murdered their great Seidrmen. Bor rendered their most fertile land uninhabitable. 

(Loki noticed that they did not mention that the Jotnar's favorite tactic was to freeze people solid and shatter them into pieces. It did mention that the Jotnar killed millions of Aesir, Vanir and Elves but in a much more positive light that Loki was used to reading.)

Eventually Bor died. More minor internal stuff. The Jotnar establish the first worldwide monarchy under Laufey's mother. Lots of boring stuff about her and her victory. (Or was it him and his? This mono-gendered language killed Allspeak.)

And then the Jotnar claim that Odin promised them a planet to colonize in exchange for help winning the war over his brother Cul. After Odin's victory the Jotnar came to claim their reward only to be turned away with nothing. (Loki did not remember any mention of the Jotnar helping Odin win the throne. He wondered who was lying.)

In response Jotnar declared war, and Asgard returned in full force. Asgard won and Odin let Laufey's parent live. (Which apparently was a mistake. Loki was not sure on the cultural details but apparently letting your enemy live was an insult. Terribly barbaric.) Laufey's parent was forced to commit suicide in order to prevent civil war. Laufey then inherited and there were some smaller wars once more boring, etc, etc.

And then the book finally got interesting. It did not stop where the other ones had but continued into the build-up of the invasion of Midgard. Apparently some of the few surviving seidrmenn release a study that suggested that the Jotnar would be extinct within five generations.

"I need that book." Loki stopped reading. If he could only get that research (even if it was completely mistaken and badly researched) it would point out what troubled Jotunheim so much. Loki would ten have to craft some solution (or point out where the report had gone wrong.) 

Loki would have slammed the book shut but it was too old and heavy to do so. (Loki was also reasonably sure that Groa also would have tried to kill him.) The librarian has long since wandered away, and Valath had left the library altogether to go take care of their animals and then do whatever it was that Valath did on a daily basis. 

Loki wandered down the aisles of the library towards the sounds of people working.

Loki found a dozen or so Jotnar with their heads bent furiously copying various books by hand. It was a very laborious process and Loki wondered why they bothered. Surely the Jotnar were not so behind with technology that they did not have computation devices or at least a printing press. Loki spotted Groa skimming down two books probably checking for errors.

"I need the report that said the Jotnar would be dead in five generations."

Groa looked up. "Are you done reading the book I gave you?"

"Yes. Now the report?"

"It no longer exists." Groa returned to her editing.

"What do you mean, "It no longer exists"?"

"It was destroyed in the war."

"Every copy?"

"And the ones who wrote it." Groa said. "There are fragments."

"Give me those." 

Groa sighed and stood up. Loki followed behind the scarred librarian. He finally felt like he was on the right track. He was finally working towards getting his freedom. All he had to do was determine why the seidrmenn though that Jotunheim was dying and then correct that. Return Jotunheim's future and his own release. 

. . .

Unfortunately four days later Loki had to admit that there really was nothing terribly useful in the fragments. For the most part they were summaries and reviews of this report. Nothing frustrated Loki more than the fact that the report did not exist. 

"There were only a few copies made." Groa had unthawed a tiny bit over the past few days. Enough so that she stopped growling at everything that he said at least.

"Why?"

"Printing is difficult in the cold." Groa said. "Very few printers in Laufey's time. Even fewer now. The report was considered inflammatory. It was a risk each time someone read it. There were three copies I have heard about. The two in the castle was destroyed by Odin's berserkers. The third was with the main writer."

"What happened to him?"

"Dead. Went to defend the front lines with his son. They fell together in one swing of an Aesir axe."

Loki was silent. There was not much else to do whenever the topic of the generation long conflict with the Aesir came up. Every story that the Jotnar told seemed to end the same way with the person dying at the hands of the Aesir. It was kind of getting rather boring. Surely the Jotnar had other ways to die? 

"Do you know what they were researching? Where should I even start?"

"I believe it was about the spread of the Unclean Lands."

"Wait. They are spreading?" Loki started.

"Nomads say they are." Groa said.

"Why are you not worried about this?"

"Far more likely to be killed by the Aesir." Groa said. Loki's eyes strayed to the scar on her face. 

"I got these from the Aesir as well." Groa watched Loki. "The Aesir are dishonorable opponents."

"No! The Aesir fight honorably!"

Groa laughed. "I was pregnant when I got this." Groa gestured to his scar. "Killed my child within me and all of my chances to have another."

"I am sure it was a mistake." Loki said. "Most Aesir don't know the Jotnar are hermaphrodites! What were you doing on the battlefield if you were preganant?"

"I was in a library less guarded than this. There were no weapons, just a few of us too sick or ill or pregnant or broken to fight." Groa took a few deep breaths. "There was nothing there but parchment and words. They destroyed everything. They killed those broken and sick and old and pregnant scholars and said they were exterminating the monsters. They called it just."

"You did the same thing to the Aesir! You kill indiscriminately! It was just a taste of your own way of fighting!"

"There are two honorable types of war: War for Resources and War for Leadership. In the War for resources then you kill who you must and let the rest escape to be Nomads. In a war for leadership you kill the leader in a duel. That is it. That is honor. You do not destroy the libraries and religious sanctuaries, art or the children. You take the children and adopt them!"

"Wait. So it would have been fine had they come in and slit all of your throats but left the books untouched?"

"Only if they wanted to settle in the city and there were too many people already living there." Groa said. "But the Aesir come and they kill and now somehow Odin has won. It makes my blood freeze to know such a dishonorable alien is our leader. It makes me even more disgusted to look at how he has corrupted the blood of Laufey. Twisted it to be as much an monster as the rest of the Aesir.

"Begone, Loki son of Odin. I do not want the corruption in my library any longer."

Loki left the library swiftly. One of the things that he had learned very quickly was that Groa was the undisputed master of the library. The small Jotunn had brought several other Jotnar to tears when Groa had found minor copy errors in their books. 

Loki had also learned the way back to Býlister's house. Loki had finally been let in on the secret that there were directional markings at the divisions of most of the corridors. They were quite far up and faint designed that way to be both easier for the average Jotnar to read and difficult for the average Aesir invader. 

Loki dodged a pushcart and the legs of a Jotnar headed to the center of town for the daily market. Underground the days and nights were indistinguishable and there was always something or someone working. Býlister and his household followed the same schedule that apparently the entire government structure worked on. It was staggered with the Farmer's daily schedules and the merchant schedules. These oddly staggered days allowed each group to interact with the others outside of their regular work hours. 

The third thing that Loki learned was that the other Jotnar were not particularly happy that Loki was here. They largely ignored the fact that he was there at all--hence the tendency for Loki to be nearly run off the road on a daily basis. Often twice daily since the farmers would try in the morning and the merchants in the evening. 

Loki did make it back to Býlister's house where he was greeted by Sköll. The pup was swiftly becoming the only thing that Loki liked about Jotunheim. Býlister was in his study. He was always in his study. And to be quite honest Loki was kind of glad he was. It would suit Loki quite well if he never saw his blood brother the rest of the time he was in Jotunheim. 

Angroboda was carving something out of bone in the sitting room. Loki could not get a good enough glimpse to see if it was a medical instrument or some kind or some jewelry. Loki had seen her try to make both. She was very skilled.

No, Loki did not need his "brother" Býlister to feel welcome in this house. Angroboda was enough for Loki. She was the best Jotun. Loki wondered if he could convince Odin to let Angroboda live and work in Asgard. Or maybe Alfheim. Sure it would take a few centuries for her to catch up with modern healing techniques, but it would be a great thing to have other peoples realize that at least one Jotnar was not a monster.

. . .  
The next few months of Loki's captivity on Jotunheim went rather the same. Some stupid leads that went nowhere in the library and then spending time with Valath and Angroboda. Valath turned out to be a useful trainer of dogs. And Angroboda just went on being awesome.

Well until suddenly Angroboda announced at a dinner that Býlister silently attended that she was moving out.

"WHAT?" Loki and his brother said. Loki was unsure who was louder.

"I am very sick of you two brothers not even speaking to each other."

"But I don't see how you moving out could possibly..." Býlister said.

"It will save me from killing the both of you, claiming the rule of the city for myself and starting a new war with Asgard."

"Please don't, my beloved." Býlister said. Loki felt a chill of something unpleasant in his spine.

"I don't want to, but I am so sick of spending time with your brother when I really want to be spending time with my partner!"

"You don't want to spend time with me?"

Angroboda sighed guiltily. "You are my patient and my partner's baby brother. I want to spent time with you--just not more than I spend with my partner."

"I am so sorry." Býlister said. "I just thought that since you seem to be getting along so well and whenever I'm in the room it gets so quiet...I will try to do better."

"Which is good. I am glad. I am also still leaving."

"What would I--or we--have to do to make you stay?" Býlister begged. 

Angroboda smiled. "You will tell Loki one thing about your childhood per day and Loki will listen and ask at least one question about the story."

"And you will stay?" Býlister said.

"How long will this go on for?"

"Until I say otherwise." Angroboda said.

Loki personally thought that Býlister was a little whipped by his partner to be a good leader or man, but what could be so bad exchanging a few words with his brother?"

"I met Angroboda when we were children." Býlister said. "We studied ethics together under the same master. I thought Angroboda was a terribly annoying know it all."

"What was the name of the Master?"

"Herundi."  
. . .

"My first hunt was when I was a child. I caught a hadýr. It bit me right here." Býlister said showing off a very old scar. "One of the other children told me that when one had enough scars they let you become and adult so I kept it from healing as long as possible."

"What is a hadýr?"

"A creature about as large as my hand. A suitable hunt for a child, but they have become scarce in recent centuries. It is feared they will soon be no more."

. . .

"Valath. What would it take to find a hadýr?" Loki said playing tug of war with Sköll as Ulv watched jealously from where Valath was using him as a large pillow. 

"A considerable amount of luck." Valath said. "They were completely gone from the territory of my last city. I don't know if they are more populous here or not?"

"Let's go outside."

"What? Now?"

"I remember that you promised to take me outside when I wanted to go."

"Yes. But I..."

"If you don't want to go with me I will just go by myself."

"Fine. Fine. If my uncle comes after me I am blaming you."

They did not find a hadýr, but they stayed out long enough that Loki watched the sunset on Jotunheim for the first time and it was beautiful  
. . .

"I spent fifteen years as a Nomad." Býlister said several weeks later. There had been a ceremony for several older children who had decided to leave the city. It was the first festival that Loki had ever witnessed. The most lively part about it was when Jotnar placed bets on how long the children would be gone. The strange thing about it was that all of the bets were in food, and the children had taken the food with them. 

"I spent more of it around here. Laufey was angry I was here. He sent me away for a reason he said. He had one of his guards drag me back to the City I was raised. The guard told me I was not suited to be a Nomad."

"I was so upset at him I spent the next decade trying to become one of the leaders of the Nomads. It did not work, but I did get better at fighting."

"What was Laufey's reason for sending you away?" Loki asked.

"He said he did not want to lose another child." 

"Why did the children take the food?" Loki asked. "How will anyone be able to collect on the bets?"

"The bets were with the spirits of the ice." Býlister shook his head. "Silly superstition. It is said that the spirits make bets at every large event in a persons life about how their lives will turn out. It is also said that the spirits hat loosing a wager. The spirits will then help protect the children, even steal them from the fates and death in order not to loose the bet."

. . .

"My first memory I can recall is when Laufey placed you in my arms and said you were my little brother. I thought you were a doll, you were so small. I promised to take care of you...and look how well that turned out." Býlister was apparently drunk on something today. Loki hadn't even known there was liquor on Jotunheim. It was green and cloudy and probably made of some sort of fish guts or something.

"...how old were you?" Loki asked. It probably still counted even if one of them were drunk, right?"

"A hundred and three years old. That was so long ago. So very long ago."

When Býlister had passed out from drinking not much later Loki took the time to talk to Angroboda.

"Today was the anniversary of the day you were taken from us." Angroboda said.

"But he knows I'm not dead."

"Yes. He knows. But I think he's mourning for the Lodur which might have been."

. . .

The next day Loki broke pattern and asked for a specific story. It seemed appropriate.

"The last time I saw you--when you were still a child--they had just realized that Odin was going to invade the palace. The guards divided into three groups and each group took one of us. You forgot your favorite toy so I picked it up and kept it with me. I was completely safe and we made it to the safehouse. Helblindi was injured and most of his guards died in an attack, but he came a little while later. 

"And you--I remember waiting and waiting. There was such noise in the distance that night. And then I slept when I could not stay awake any longer still holding your toy. And when I woke up the adults had said Lodur was dead. My little brother was dead. I snuck out because it could not be true. I saw my first dead body that day. And my second and my hundreth after that because that was all that was left..."

.  
.  
.  
"Is that they toy that is in my room?"

"Yes."

. . .

That night Loki took the toy out from behind the unread books and stared at it. The beady little eyes reflected the scenes that belonged to an infant named Lodur whose life should have been so different. It occurred to him that this animal was exactly the way that the hadýr had been described to him with large furry ears, small horns and stripes. 

"Could I have been happy?" Loki brushed at the toy. One of the ears looks slightly chewed by an infant's mouth. Or maybe a bug or something had gotten to it instead. Who was the child this toy belonged to?

Lodur would have had two brothers instead of one and two halves. According to Býlister's months of forced childhood stories, Helblindi was a brute most of the time, but loyal with a soft spot for family. Býlister was clever and intelligent. He loved so fiercely and so deeply that he would sacrifice anything for that which he felt responsible for.

It would have been different.

Loki would have been different.

But maybe, maybe it would not have been bad.

. . .

"Winter is coming soon." Býlister mentioned over breakfast. 

Loki nodded. He was really starting to like the parundella. There were some level of flavors that Loki had clearly missed the first few times he had eaten it. (It was also a lot better with just a bit of this brown dipping sauce that apparently Býlister disliked.)

"We are going to have to start preparing for the attack."

"Attack?"Loki coughed. Visions of Jotnar invading Asgard filled Loki's mind's eye. 

"Yes. It's almost a yearly tradition." Býlister said. "The nomads organize an attack before winter. We defend. If we win we take in an equal number to the ones who were killed and offer a set amount of food. If they win they kill enough of us to settle in themselves."

"I do not believe how casually you speak of civil war." Loki said.

"It is the reality of a world that is dying." Býlister looked away for a moment. "How goes your studies?"

"Poorly." Loki growled. "I wish I had that one report that said that Jotunheim was dying."

"The library lacks the Korangar report?" Býlister asked.

"Yes! The three copies were lost..."

"Ah. I wish you had asked earlier." Býlister snorted. "I have a copy in my study and there is one in the palace."

"Your study. Your study right over there."

"Indeed. I was certain that the library had a copy. Very certain. Perhaps it was lost?"

"Give me a copy of that thrice blasted hel-damned report!"

. . .

So as the city prepared for its annual battle and yearly period of starvation known as winter, Loki became lost in something that was even worse news for the survival of these people.

It was not just one thing wrong with the planet, but a series of terrible events that were to happen all at once. 

The first was that the planet was a in a warming trend. This would have been good news since Jotuneim, like all livable planets, went through cycles of warming and cooling. Typically this would mean a shift in the glacial continents and a shifting of the geysers that the Jotnar (and the majority of life on Jotnar) needed to live. 

Usually the Jotnar would just migrate to the locations of the new geysers and bring with them all of the agricultural life they needed to survive. Lots of Jotnar would die of starvation, and in the battles over new territories, but there would be enough Jotnar alive to survive and life would move on as it had over and over again throughout the evolutionary history of Jotunheim. (It was one of these previous shifts from warmer to colder that had seen the extinction of the Eotnar that Loki had apparently been cloned to replace.)

The first problem was that about half of Jotunheim had been rendered uninhabitable by the bombs of Bor. These bombs had left behind a terrible and long lasting form of radiation designed to destroy the Jotnar's protection against their own freezing skin. Exposed Jotnar were known to loose limbs from only a few minutes of exposure and those with an exposure of nearly a day would not live the rest of the week.

If the geysers emerged in the Unclean Lands why would be uninhabitable.

It also got worse. The melting ice would spread the infected dust via streams and rivers. It could poison the water supply of some of the cities and render a population sick and/or infertile.

And then there were the mutations which made the Unclean Lands their home. There were viruses and bacteria that lived there which responded to no known treatment. The predators which had survived in the unclean lands were even more savage and deadly than the average predator, and since normal non-mutated Jotunheim predators were capable of killing several Jotnar on a bad day, this was quite terrifying.

And then there was the fact that these predators were immune to the deadly frozen touch of the Jotnar. 

It was terrible. 

It was horrible.

If the report was true---(Please, please do not let the report be true.)--the Jotnar were on the cusp of a swift and deep slide into extinction.

No wonder Býlister surrendered. No wonder he had killed the puppy. No wonder Laufey had invaded the closest ill-defended planet no matter how ill-suited it was to the survival of his species. 

The Jotnar were functioning on survival ethics. That terrible, terrible ethical gray area surrounding how far it was honorable to go to save yourself or your family. 

The emotional gray area where was it better to die on your feet or live off of scraps from the victor's table. 

Laufey had chosen to die in his feet. Býlister had decided to live off of scraps. 

Loki had tried both, failed in both, but learned they both were terrible, terrible options.

Loki needed to determine if this report was realistic or not. He needed to learn now. He needed to arrange a trip to the nearest infected area. He needed measurements. He needed equipment for the measurements. Also how far away were they from the nearest patch?

And with amazing timing Valath arrived to help with Sköll's local training regimen.

"How close is the nearest Unclean Land?" Loki demanded.

"Uh...about a week's ride at one's swiftest pace. Why?" Valath said.

"Can you take me there?"

"What? No." Valath said. "What is with this sudden interest?"

"I need to see it!"

"You won't be able to get close enough to see it!" Valath said. "There is a ring around each site that not even the nomads dare pass."

"But I need to see if they are really expanding."

"How are you going to tell?"

"I don't know." Loki admitted. "If this was Asgard I would have all of this equipment."

Valath snorted. "If this were Asgard we would not have this problem to begin with."

"I wouldn't say that." Loki shook his head. "The Aesir destroyed most of their home planet ages ago. The ancient Aesir were at war so much they destroyed everything but a small segment of one of their continents."

Valath frowned. "Why would they destroy their own land? That doesn't make any sense."

Loki shrugged. "Can you get me there?"

Valath petted Sköll for a few moments. "Your timing could not be worse. The Nomads are amassing."

"For their yearly war." Loki was still amused by the fact that the Jotnar were so often at war that it was nearly a part of their calendar.

"Between the weather and the nomads and the beasts...this is a terrible, terrible idea."

. . .

"Býlister is going to kill me." Valath said for the third time as they left the city. Loki had not allowed Valath any time to truly contemplate how awful this plan undoubtedly was. But it had been a long time since Loki had participated in a foolhardy (okay--just plain stupid) idea of this magnitude.

Loki apparently did miss Thor. He was the best at coming up with stupid ideas.

"Could this not wait until spring?" Valath asked. 

"No." Loki would probably be halfway driven insane with curiosity by then if he had to wait that long to visit the Unclean Lands. 

Loki smirked to himself. Over the past few months it had become quite apparent that Valath was relatively easy to convince to go on ill-thought adventures outside the safety of the city--not because he wanted the excitement, but because he did not want anything to happen to Loki. 

It was kind of nice to know that the only reason Valath would do something so dangerous was because Loki wanted to do it. 

"This isn't you suddenly going through puberty and trying to become a Nomad is it?" Valath said. "Because I'm done with that. I only lived a month outside the city during my coming of age. I did not like it. I like living in the city." Valath stiffened in the saddle. 

"No. I'm doing this as part of my research." Loki tightened his grip on Valath's waist. Valath continued muttering for several miles, but eventually gave up and was silent for the rest of the trip.  
. . .

Býlister was not having a good day. The farms were not producing as much as had been projected last year. That meant that the City would not be able to support as many through the winter as they had hoped. That meant that the war this year was going to be very cruel fighting over extremely limited resources. 

The scouts were reporting that the Nomads were gathering earlier than usual as well. That meant that the hunting was poor. Rumours may have also said that the less productive cities may be shedding inhabitants as well, swelling the numbers of Nomads.

This winter was going to be very difficult.

The only things Býlister wanted to do was go home, kiss his partner, eat some food (and take a few bites of a rare delicacy he had been hiding in his study for a terrible day like this one), and have a brief forced conversation about Býlister's childhood. 

Angroboda was a genius for forcing the two of them to talk. Býlister thanked the day that Angroboda had agreed to share a life with Býlister. 

That had been before Laufey and Helblindi had died. Angroboda had agreed back when Býlister's future was limited to being a scholar for the rest of his life. And yet Angroboda had stayed through joining the underground resistance, going into politics, becoming King and then signing away his kingdom. Angroboda was the most amazing creature in all the nine realms.

Býlister was greeted at the door by Loki's pup. Býlister knew that Valath and Loki had been trying very hard to train the thing, but they did not seem to be making much progress. Býlister was not sure if this was because the animal was stupid or if Valath was too busy making eyes at Loki. 

No one else seemed to be home so Býlister flopped down on his favorite bench. It felt so good not to have to be Chief Býlister for a moment. 

A strange paper caught Býlister's eye. It had his name written on it large and bold in handwriting that clearly would prefer the runes of Allspeak. It was just an inch or two outside of his reach from where he had flopped. He contemplated ignoring the note, but it could be something important.

Býlister wiggled a few inches towards it retrieved the note that probably was something like having dinner at a friend's house please do not send the army after me. Býlister opened it and within a few words was swearing. 

Angroboda came in about then with a friendly greeting. Býlister shoved the note at her on his way to organize a search party.

. . .

The problem with foolhardy plans (when one was not Thor at least) was that they run a very high risk of being a particularly bad idea. Take for instance the plan to go on two week long trip when one is significantly smaller than the other members of the dominant race in right before the onset of winter on the back of a large wolf that happens to be one of the beasts that the normal sized inhabitants hunt for food.

Taking this into consideration it is actually surprising that they were not ambushed until the middle of the third day. 

Valath also had not helped with the whole evading capture plan because he surrendered right away. Loki had been forced to surrender as well. (Okay two little runts against three dozen or so regular sized Jotnar was probably a bad idea, but something galled Loki about not fighting back.)

"You are rather small aren't you." The leader of the Nomads sneered when the two runts were shoved in front of him. "I wonder which of you is this Loki I've been hearing about."

"I am." Valath immediately volunteered. Loki started at Valath. What was he playing at?

The leader laughed. "I doubt that very much, runt. The thing is that I knew Laufey very well." The last few words were said with a lilt that implied something much more. "And you have not the look of him."

The leader grabbed Loki's face. "No--you, You look like Laufey. There-that is one of his looks. That look when you contemplate the slow death of your enemies. Mind scheming for a way out. No, you are Loki Kinslayer."

The crowd expressed their disproval by shouting.

"I should kill you for all of the pain you have brought Jotunheim." 

The crowd roared their approval.

"NO!" Valath protested. "If you kill him Odin will kill us. All of us."

The leader backhanded Valath sharply. Valath was knocked back into the crowd which shoved him back into a pile.

"Don't..." Loki began. Part of him wanted to rush over to Valath to help him get to his feet. The other side wanted to keep himself composed. It was time to think of a way out of this, but Loki was drawing a blank. Loki had no weapons and he could not read the leader to see what would make him tick.

"Don't what, runt? Don't kill him? This misbegotten useless runt? What use of he to anyone."

"His uncle is the Minister over Farms." Loki said. "I'm sure that he could be ransomed for quite a sum."

The leader smirked. "Of course that would mean we are planning on leaving anyone alive."

"Tear the useless one apart." The leader said.

"No!" Loki said giving away any chance he had of saying that he was neutral on the subject of Valath's continued breathing. "What do you want?"

"I want you to suffer." The leader grinned. "Suffer for all of the Jotnar you killed. Make sure the useless one lives as long as possible."

And with that Valath was grabbed by one of the largest Jotnar. Thankfully, Valath slashed at the Jotun's hands. Valath must have finally decided that it was in his best interest to fight.

Unfortunately, the Jotnar did not fight with honor like the Aesir. Valath slashed at everything that came near him. He may have even caused a few mortal wounds, but the simple fact was that almost every blow he landed left Valath open. And there were enough Jotnar surrounding him to take advantage of almost every opening.

It was a valiant struggle to survive, but a well placed kick had Valath on the ground within minutes. And then the crowd closed in kicking and stomping. 

"They are coming!" A Jotnar cried over the sounds of the Nomads killing one of the only reasons the Jotnar should not be exterminated from the nine realms.

The shouting swiftly distracted the crowd from their sick game of kickball. Loki tried to make a break through the crowd, but the Jotnar closest to Loki stopped him before he took two strides. 

Loki stabbed the two of them in the hands with two ice blades. Loki would never get to show Valath that they weren't overly ornate and they could cause serious damage in battle. Watch as the first Jotnar who had tried to stop Loki clutched as his stomach trying to protect his organs from falling out. The second one fell with a blade through his eye.

Loki would take as many of these foul Jotnar with him.

All of this touchy-feely get to know your relatives crap had made Loki start to forget that there were terrible Jotnar that deserved to die. Kill the nomads and save the cities. Make it safe for those Jotnar adolescents whose parents tried to out gamble the fucked up gods which created this blighted realm.

Loki's fury managed to get him to the crumpled body of Valath. Loki barely noticed that the Jotnar had stopped trying to kill him. Something had distracted them, but Loki was too busy trying to see if Valath was alive. 

"Valath. Valath." Loki said carefully turning Valath onto his back. Please let him be alive.

And Valath coughed. "Hurts."

"It's going to be okay." Loki tried to sound reassuring. He had studied healing for a few decades. But he had lost interest when he realized his brother was not going to be grateful for a medic just like he did not need a tactician or a seidrman. But now Loki regretted not being a more dedicated student. At least he knew enough how to stabilize someone long enough to get them to a real doctor. 

"Thjazi." Loki looked up. He was both surprised that Býlister was hear and that Loki could even recognize Býlister's voice from so far away. Loki felt a surge of hope. If Býlister was here than maybe Angroboda was here as well. Maybe Loki would not loose Valath this day. Unfortunately, Loki realized that he was still behind the line of Nomadic Jotnar. Angroboda and any hope that Valath had to survive was on the other side.

"Býlister." The leader, or more properly Thjazi said. "I seem to have acquired two little runts. I believe you may know them."

"What do you want?"

"No! The question what do you want?" Thjazi screamed. "How dare you sell us out. Trade off all of our pride and our revenge to play house with a traitor!"

"You are short-sighted as always. Revenge will gain Jotunheim nothing but more death! We drink and drink the bitter cup of revenge forgetting over and over that it is nothing but poison!"

"You would have us be beggars!"

"Better beggars than extinct completely." 

"What ineffective beggar you have turned out to be. Where is the aid you promised us that would come from the treaty with the Aesir? There has been no change these past few years. There has been no peace that you promised. The Aesir have taken your good faith and now watch us die slowly killing each other off for scraps of fish."

"Do you challenge me?" 

"I would rather strip your city of all of its people and feed upon the flesh of that they have raised!"

"I challenge you to the leadership of you tribe." Býlister shouted in response.

There was a ripple of uncertainty in the crowd. Valath groaned in pain drawing Loki's attention back to where he had stopped supplying enough power to supporting Valath's life energy.

"Loki." Valath said with a groan.

"Don't talk." Loki said.

"You were...we were sup'sed to be partners." Valath whispered. "I...ted you to love me."

"You are going to be okay." Loki said. "This is not the time for confessions you are going to regret. We're barely friends."

"Fr'nds?"

"Yes. Now shut your mouth and stay alive until I can get you to a healer."

The sounds of fighting drew Loki's attention back to where Býlister and Thjazi were fighting. They had both used ice to create plates of armor over vulnerable spots. They both had two ice blades and were striking with all of the dedication of someone out to kill their worst enemy. This was a fight to the death of at least one of the combatants.

Loki returned to trying to sooth Valath. This entire situation was just completely out of control--like everything that Loki had ever tried. A little break in led to Loki's relationship with his family collapsing. Surviving led to his father nearly sentencing him to death. 

There were so many choices that Loki had made. Why did every choice that Loki makes end up being the worst option?

When Loki looked up again to take in the fight it was not going well. Loki felt his heat sink. Býlister was probably not going to win. Thjazi was a hardened Nomad and leader of hardened Nomads. He ruled by strength and fear. Býlister was a scholar. A leader of farmers and ranchers. 

Why had he challenged? Trying to save a brother who had murdered their Father and tried to destroy his planet. Stupid Býlister and his stupid, stupid stuffed animal and attachment to a child long dead. All of Loki's brother's were stupid idiots who should have given up on Loki long ago. 

They should all give up before they turn out like Býlister who is not going to win this...

But wait. Býlister was not taking as much damage as Loki thought. Instead he was slowly giving ground towards a cliff-edge. Býlister had a plan. A risky plan, but it might be his only hope of victory. 

In Loki's arms Valath shuddered.

In the fight Býlister either fell or pretended to fall. 

Loki found himself pleading with the spirits that if he bet that both of these Jotnar that Loki loved died right now would the spirits save them both?

There was no time left. Let there be a miracle.

And then Loki cried to Heimdall. 

The traitorous, hated Heimdall who should be waiting.  
Please, please let Balder or Hoder or Frigga or Odin command the Gatekeeper to open. Please do not let the first friend Loki had made in centuries die this day.  
...  
...  
...  
The heavens were silent. 

The rainbow bridge remained closed.

Býlister sprung his trap and shoved the Nomad into the ravine. The crowd cheered for the victory.

Valath went still. 

Loki searched for a pulse.

There was none.

Loki started pumping on the heart in a primitive and desperate move to prevent the spirits from taking Loki's friend. Loki didn't even know what the Jotnar heaven was like. Was there plenty of food and hunting and crystal towers that extended into the sky? Was it warm and filled with nothing but peace and love? Was there purpose? 

Loki bet that it was dull and boring and not a place that Valath needed to go right now. 

And all this while Loki pounded out the rhythm he had been taught in a different life for a different species. Maybe it would work here.

Angroboda was there.

She tried to stop him.

She said there was nothing left to do.

But Loki was not going to stop.

Not until Eir said it was useless.

Not until he could go no longer.

Not until the heavens opened and Heimdall told Loki why he never listened or answered--even when Loki was doing something good.

Not until the very gods themselves came down and told Loki why nothing Loki ever did was good enough.

And then the multihued bridge finally came to take Loki to Asgard.

. . .

"How is he doing?" Hoder walked into the edge of the frozen area where they were keeping the unconscious Jotun. Loki sat within it still in his Jotnar skin, but Hoder stood just outside.

Loki looked up from holding his friend's hand.

"They think he will wake up soon."

"That's good." Hoder said. "I know you want to be here for that, but I think you should be somewhere else."

"I am not going back to Jotunheim until he is better. I do not care how long that extends my sentence!"

"No. There is a meeting of the Committee that meets about charitable aid. I figured that since you are here--"

Loki's stared at his brother.

"I've been making Heimdall tell me what is happening with you and Jotunheim." Hoder said. "I get rather terribly bored without my younger brothers here to cause trouble. I think Valath will forgive you if you are trying to make things better."

"Why don't you do it then?"

"No one trusts a blind man to see what should be obvious." Hoder said. "You are always better at causing trouble than I am as well. Perhaps you should go make trouble doing something positive this time."

Loki stood up. Hoder grinned.

"They are meeting in the North Blue room." Hoder said. "I would hurry though. You know how short those meetings can be."

Loki sprinted. He wished he had time to stop at his room and get dressed. He wished he was not wearing the bracelet that stopped his ability to cloak himself in a disguise. He was going to have to do this presentation nearly nude almost every inch of his blue skin showing. 

It had not mattered when he was holding Valath's hand because once Valath was stable they were going to have to go back to Jotunheim. Back where blues skin was normal. 

Loki through back the doors to the North Blue Room and took in the crowd. It was the regular small group of aging gentlemen who did the day to day work of rubberstamping the same type of aid over and over again. 

The same crowd which had never had to starve. 

The same crowd which had been to war, but never on the losing side.

"My lords. I have a proposition for you." Loki drew himself up into his usual proud stance. 

The disgust on the committee's face just made Loki want to rub his true self in their faces. Loki knew he was better than all of the men in this room. Loki was a prince of two realms and it was long past time everyone in Asgard realized that.

"We have a chance here to change the political landscape right now." Loki said leaning on the desk of the head of the committee. "It is no secret that the Jotnar are hurting. Jotunheim is dying, my lords. Imagine how grateful they would be. How much in debt they would be to Asgard if we just helped them through this difficult time."

Loki felt a little guilty trying to convince the committee that the Jotnar would be more easy to manipulate if they owed their survival to the Asgard. It as a little manipulative. It was probably little morally sketchy. But at least this winter Býlister would not have to watch his city starve. 

. . .

Loki and Valath transported down before Valath was actually well enough to travel. Loki had not liked the way that the Aesir looked at Valath. Valath was a thousand times a better person than all of them put together. 

The trip was longer than Loki had thought it would be and somehow far too short. Valath kept stopping to stare at how beautiful everything was. He even hung his head over the ledge to see how far he could see. It was a fun trip with Loki spending most of the time relating the story of how Bor acquired the materials for the original construction.

And then with the last step, Loki and Valath were back on Jotunheim. 

It took a moment adjusting to the temperature of Jotunheim for Loki to realize that that the tightening of his skin meant that he was feeling was cold. He had never really ever been cold in his Jotun skin before. it was a novel feeling. 

Loki smiled when he saw that Býlister was waiting for them with some guards. Býlister was wearing a dress and a shawl but it did not cover up the fact that he was still recovering from his own injuries. Loki was uncertain as to their extent, but Angroboda had not visited during Valath's recovery citing a need to stay and treat Býlister. 

"Welcome back, Loki." Býlister said. "The Asgardians have seemed to have started providing aid free of attachments in the few days you were gone."

"I am glad to hear it. It's good to see you again, Býlister." Loki said. He paused for a moment. "And I think that it's okay if you want to call me Lodur." 

"Are you sure?" Angroboda said.

Loki nodded. It was worth adjusting to responding to a new name to see Býlister try not to cry in front of his people. It was the only way to thank Býlister for risking his life to save Loki's. 

And there was the fact that Loki was and would always remain Loki, even if he was born Lodur.

. . .

Balder and Hoder relaxed with a cup of ale in private as was their nightly tradition.

"Loki returned to Jotunheim today." Hoder said. 

Balder nodded.

"I am sorry you could not see him very often during his stay." Hoder continued.

"I hate politics." Balder responded. "I hate having to distance myself from my own little brother."

"Brothers you mean."

"Yes." Balder drained his glass and poured another. "Politics ruins everything." 

"So says the next All-Father. Leader of the nine realms."

Balder grunted. "Eight living realms, one of which is halfway dead, and the other one on the brink of war and another that does not recognize our authority. I think that is actually leader of six possibly six and a half realms?"

"Let's not let that get out otherwise they are going to make you go conquer three more. Six realms just does not have the same feeling to it." Hoder said.

Balder snorted.

"I know!" Hodur said. "You can go conquer Midgard and then give it to Thor to rule. That solves everything."

"Please. Please. I get enough of that in the council. It is not funny."

"Fine. Fine. How much aid did we end up giving to Jotunheim."

"Less than what Loki asked for, but more than what I thought he would convince them to let go."

"The whole using aid as a political tool really helped convince them to lend aid?"

"You know how much of the council is. Only doing what they know will be of benefit to them in the future."

"I have figured out what I want to be in your new government--assassin. I will go kill off the..."

"Please no."

"I will kill off the old councilors that have no vision..."

"Please."

"And no one will suspect me because not only am I your brother I am also blind."

"And you will poison them all with Mistletoe, then?

"Right. Signature poison. As soon as I get down to Midgard and have them tell me exactly what Mistletoe is."

"Which would require you to go to Midgard which, I believe, you have sworn off visiting." 

"Damn it. You have pointed out the flaw in my plan. I shall have to sit around and do nothing like a leech." And as if to emphasize his words he took a swig of ale.

"Yes. Yes. Let's do that. At least leeches drink in silence."

Hoder snorted his ale and then had to take several minutes coughing the rest of it out of his lungs. Balder decided he had won the conversation, and tried to pretend he did notice that there should really have been three little brothers at this table instead of just one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the ecology of Jotunheim and the Jotnar is based off the idea that on such a cold and inhositable world life would revolve around hydrothermal vents (which Loki thinks of as geysers). In that world (and Earth before the Permian Period) the majority of life would be carnivorous. 
> 
> The number of Nomads fluctuates depending on how well the culture is going. During the height of Jotunheim's power and stability there were very few, most of them adolescents who would be nomads for only a few years before returning to the cities. On the other hand the cities were less lawful and functioned a lot more like a city as we would recognize it.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting these two chapters at once. One more chapter to go. I also need to write up a few other stories I have planned for the Defamation of the Gods stories. I've sworn off predicting anything other than that since the SHIELD interlude decided not to be as interesting as I thought it would be.


End file.
